Beat the heat with Cannoli Ice Cream

"Again with the variations on cannoli?" You say. Well, you might say, I suppose, but those of you who are like me and can't get enough of anything even vaguely related to these particular pastries will really enjoy this one, I'm sure.

Ever since acquiring an ice cream maker last winter, I have been experimenting with a variety of different ice cream flavors: strawberry-basil, peaches and cream, fresh mint chocolate chip, etc. Last weekend, though, I found myself with extra ricotta cheese and an idea: if Ben and Jerry's can do it, why can't I?

I scoured the internet in search of recipes, but none seemed to both fit my ice cream maker and appropriately approximate what I personally felt was the right taste for cannoli. I ended up blending a few together and came up with a lovely mixture.

It doesn't taste like cannoli filling, which is what I was going for, but it became something else entirely, something of its own. It tastes rather sweet, but not too sweet. There's a hint of spiciness that I think that comes from the addition of cinnamon and nutmeg. Why not try it for yourself?

Cannoli Ice Cream

[What you need]
2 cups whole milk
15 oz ricotta cheese
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 T vanilla
1 t cinnamon
1 t nutmeg
To taste: chocolate chips, chopped pistachios, and/or dried apricots*
pinch salt

[What to do]

1. Whisk milk, salt, and granulated sugar together until slightly frothy.
2. Add cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla, and spices
3. Put in refrigerator for at least an hour, but it's best overnight
4. Follow your ice cream maker's instructions or! use this method.

*My ice cream maker instructs you to add "mix-ins" chocolate, nuts, fruit, etc at the last 5 minutes of the process, but your method may vary.

Cannoli Tarts! [The Cookbook...sort of]

[This post is a little belated. I started it a while back after my birthday, but life intervened. Here is it, a month late, but still good! You can make them for San Giuseppe Day tomorrow! Enjoy!]

Another year. Another birthday. Another treat to take in for the coworkers. After last year's casata disaster, I decided to keep things a little more on the simple side this year: I would make cannolis! Little did I know that cannolis were quite possibly the furthest things from simple I could have possibly chosen.

The plan was to whip up a batch of filling according to Bisnonna's recipes and use it fill up store-bought shells. Unfortunately, the weekend of my birthday, as I scoured the grocery stores in my area (ultimately going to 4 different stores), I learned that store bought shells aren't as readily available as I thought they were for some reason. I could have sworn that grocery stores, at least where I grew up, carried boxed cannoli shells, but around these parts, they are definitely less accessible.

So there I was, shell-less with all the filling ingredients and out of treat ideas.For some reason I couldn't get the idea of cannolis out of my mind. Making my own shells was out because my madre has Bisnonna's shell molds. I was stumped. And then I decided to search the internet to see if there was some sort of cannoli shell mold DIY out there (pinterest has DIYs for everything after all) and I found my inspiration: Cannoli Bites! When I saw this recipe, hope rushed back to me. I could adapt Bisnonna's cannoli recipe to suit this new form of shell mold and save the day!

Bisnonna's Cannoli

Bisnonna writes: 1 2/4 c. flour, 1/2 c. crisco, 3T sugar 1 egg, 3oz sherry wine or 6 T

Filling: 2# ricotta, about 1 c powder sugar or more or less, 4 almond chocolate bars cut up, about 12 cherries cut up, 1/2 c. nuts, 1/2 container of Cool Whip. Mix together and put in shells.

Amy's version: I mix up the shell dough with her exact ingredients, except I used 3 oz of red wine and vegetable shortening instead of crisco. The instructions for making the shells are at the Cooking Classy. As for the filling; again, I follow Bisnonna to the letter except instead of Cool Whip, I just used regular whip cream. I find the specific name brand usage in some of Bisnonna's recipe cards very interesting. Surely she didn't always have these brands. Crisco may been around her whole life, but Cool Whip wasn't around until 1966. I'm sure that her recipe was likely adapted from some older recipe after much trial and error; and just like that, the life cycle of the recipe continues.

Raisin Pie

"The Pennsylvania Dutch loved their pies and ate them morning, noon and night. There were pies on the table at every meal. Everyone helped himself and 'ate himself full.'" - Pennsylvania Dutch Traditional Recipes for Pies and Pastries, 1963

I started this blog as a way to memorialize people I love through the food that I make, using recipes that they made and loved or recipes that remind me of them in some way. That being the case, I think there's no other recipe that I can present next. It has to be Raisin Pie.

Raisin Pie was a favorite of grandfather's and something I will always associate with him.

Oddly, in my research for an authentic Pennsylvania Dutch recipe, I discovered many references to it as a pie traditionally presented to bereaved families. I still don't know if I'm brave enough to make it as I've never been great at making pies, but since it's apparently rumoured to have these special powers, maybe I'll give it a shot. Here's the recipe in the mean time:

From Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking available on Project Gutenberg. (Other sources I've seen replace one cup of water with spiced rum. The choice is yours)

Raisin Pie

1 cup seeded raisins, washed
2 cups water
1½ cups sugar
4 tablespoons flour
1 egg, well beaten
juice of a lemon
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
pinch of salt

Soak raisins 3 hours, mix sugar, flour and egg. Then add seasoning, raisins and liquid. Cook over hot water for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. When the mixture is cool, empty into pie-dough lined pie plate. Cover pie with narrow strips of dough, criss-crossed and bake until browned.

Grape Focaccia (Schiacciata all'uva)

One of the best things about sharing most meals with someone else is that you can experiment a little with what you make. If I were only cooking for myself, there is no way on earth I would have attempted this recipe.

Why?

Well, for starters, I'm not the biggest fan of grapes. I know, I know. I'm the girl who made fun of her father constantly throughout childhood for liking tomato soup but refusing to eat fresh tomatoes. I get how silly it sounds for a wine devotee to be grape-shy. But there's a reason for that too.

Grape flavoring reminds me of a certain cold medicine that I was often given as a child. I avoid syrupy cherry flavored items for the same reason. I know the grape was supposed to make it better, but...I now have a lifelong aversion to grapes that aren't in wine form.

As I got older I found the Muscat and Sultana varietals. I began to realize (or so I assumed) that "actual" grapes taste nothing like certain childhood cold medicines. It made logical sense. Medicine wasn't made with actual grapes for flavoring, but artificial flavors. I told myself it would be fine.

This recipe, though, doesn't call for Muscats or Sultanas. This recipe calls for Concords, which little did I know at the time...

are the inspiration for artificial grape flavor.

Unfortunately, Concord grapes still taste like that childhood grape flavored medication, so I didn't love this, but people at work called it wine bread, so I suppose in the right hands this recipe could be amazing. Head on over to Food52 and check it out.

Paczki Day!

"I'm going to make pączki."
"What's that?"
"They're...like...jelly doughnuts, but...a million times better."

I know a lot of this blog is mostly dedicated to my Sicilian heritage, but there's a lot of Polish going on in my background too, and I am just as proud of, if not nearly as knowledgeable about, it. Pączki (plural of  pączek, fyi) are a Polish doughnut of sorts, a deep fried treat for Tłusty Czwartek (Fat Tuesday), and one of my favorite things in the world. I seek them out annually. I make sure that I get one of these babies every year on Pączki Day. This year, I decided to make my own.

They are -fattening-, not even slightly healthy. However, as far as I'm concerned, that's okay. Pączki are not meant to be eaten every day. They are meant to be a moment of joy before 40 long days of fasting and contemplation. Sometimes you need a little dose of joy.

I warn you, this is an endeavor. It takes all day. But it's worth it. It's so worth it.

Whether you're celebrating Fat Tuesday tomorrow or you're just looking for a delicious treat, this recipe is just the thing you need.

Pączki 

inspired by traditional recipes in the Polish American Journal and this one from Serious Eats

[What You Need]

2 cups whole milk (full fat)
4 1/2 tsp instant yeast
1/2 cup + 1 T. sugar
4 cups all purpose flour
1 cup rye flour (optional - if you want you can just use 5 cups of all purpose)
4 eggs yolks
1 whole egg
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 oz. rum
1 tsp honey
Oil for frying (I used canola because it was what I had on hand, but anything with a high smoke point should work)
Filling of choice (optional)

1 cup powdered sugar for dusting (optional)
orange rind (optional)

[What to do]
1. Melt butter and set aside to cool.
2. Heat milk to ~115 degrees F.
3. Stir in yeast and give them a tablespoon of sugar to eat. When you see the yeast is active, stir in 2 cups of flour, cover with a moist dishcloth and set aside for 30 minutes. (Essentially, you are creating a starter here)
4. Whisk the eggs together with the rest of the sugar, honey, vanilla, and salt.
5. Add melted butter and egg mixture to starter, combine slowly and stir only as much as needed to combine the ingredients.
6. Finally, slowly add the rest of the flour. It will form a very sticky, but soft, smooth dough. Cover and set aside to rise for 1 1/2 hours.
7. On a floured surface, knead the rum into the dough (the alcohol content keeps the oil from absorbing too deeply into the dough while frying), then roll it out until ~1 in thick.
8. Cut out circles of dough. For me, this recipe made about 30 circles, but if you roll it out thinner, it may make more. Set the circles aside to rise for an 1 1/2 hours.
9. Heat oil for frying: I keep a small amount of dough to test for this.
10. Fry the circles (which will have risen to twice their size) and let them cool.
11. (optional): using a pastry filling pipe, fill with your choice of filling (traditional fillings [filling is controversial, though] include rose custard, plum, etc. I used raspberry for 1/2 and did not fill the rest.)
12. (optional): fill a shallow bowl with powdered sugar and/or orange zest and roll pączki in it to cover them. (I used sugar for unfilled and zest for raspberry to distinguish the two types.)

So there you have it. My most complex recipe to date. Enjoy! Happy Mardi Gras!

Ricotta Pie -or- Salvaging a Cassata fail

[I know, I've been so bad about posting lately. It's no excuse, but it's been a busy month and I haven't gotten much decent cooking done. I'll hopefully be better in the coming year.]

My plan was to use up extra ricotta from the lasagna to make cassata. As you can see, that did not work out for several reasons.

The other layer and filling were already done though! What's a girl to do, stuck with all this filling and only one layer of sponge cake?

The resourceful girl "invents" Ricotta Pie.

Ricotta Pie

by Amy (inspired by Bisnonna's Cassata recipe, which, hopefully, I'll eventually make correctly)

[What you need]

1 sponge cake (I used this recipe pretty much exactly, my madre's trick; however, is to buy one. If I had done that, I might actually have a Cassata to show you, so...tread carefully.)

1 lb ricotta

1 cup powdered sugar

1 cup mini chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped almonds and/or pistachios

1/2 tsp cinnamon

[What to do]

1. Bake or acquire sponge cake. Carefully (look at my disaster above to see not carefully) place in a pie dish.

2. Mix the rest of the ingredients together, spread carefully over the cake in a pie like fashion and everything will work out in the end.

Torrone

Picture, if you will, your favorite childhood candy. Maybe, like my madre, your mind goes to miniature Tootsie Rolls or, like my sister, you're thinking of the ever allusive Zero bar. For me, there are two candies which make my mouth water with nostalgic joy. One is dark chocolate. One is nougat. Both involve almonds. I really don't know if I can stress enough how much I love almonds.

One of these can be found in just about any corner of the world. The other...I have only ever seen in grocery stores that specifically market themselves as "Italian". Because of the lack of such stores in the little nook of the world I find myself in, I've decided to whip up a batch on my own for the holidays.

It turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be.

The recipes I found were simple enough. The problem was: it takes a long time and a lot of patience, two things I never really seem to have in spades. If I had to watch a bunch of thermometers and jump back and forth between pots like my other candy making adventures require, I actually might have found this easier. In reality, making Torrone is a highly meditative chemistry lesson ideal for the day I had this Saturday when we snowed in anyway.

Torrone

Adapted from Dellalo and Food52

[What you need]
12 oz of honey (about 1 1/2 cups)
4 cups of whole almonds
3 egg whites
flavoring to taste (a box of Torrone from the store will come with vanilla, lemon, and orange. Lemon is my favorite so I used it exclusively, but feel free to get creative.)
1 1/4 cup powdered suger (optional: for the impatient among us.)
2 sheets ostia wafer paper (which can be found here - honestly, I just used rice paper for my first batch. I mainly include the more traditional detail for the fun story my madre tells in which she and her sisters used to peel the paper off the nougats and "play communion" when they were young.)

[What to do]
1.Set up a double boiler system and pour in the honey. Cook until it is clearly of a liquid consistency, stirring frequently. This took me around an 1 1/2 hours.
2. In the meantime, roast the almonds. Put them on a rimmed baking sheet in the oven (at around 350 degrees F.)  for 10-15 minutes.
3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. This step is crucial, do not rush it. The eggs are the binder that bring the whole thing together.
4. Fold the egg whites into the honey. Continue folding until the mixture becomes thick and somewhat caramel-like. This step, also crucial, takes a long time. I, personally, almost gave up on it, thinking that it would never set. Don't panic. Just stir. (If you find that you can't deal with this any longer, add the powdered sugar. It will help thicken things up; however, the candy will no longer be authentic.)
5. Fold in the almonds and flavoring. The mixture should be thick enough that the almonds don't all sink immediately.
6. Line a baking dish with wafer paper and pour the mixture in. Place another wafer paper on top and press down with your hands or other weight. Set aside for at least an hour while it firms up; it may take longer.
7. To serve, flip it over and cut the nougat into squares.

Prozia Celi's Chocolate Chip Cookies [The Cookbook]

For many a year, I have been on a mission to find the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe and for many a year, I have failed miserably. My mother's suggestion to "Just use the recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag" only yielded cookies so flat that they might have been good substitutes for hamster frisbees.

I've heard countless suggestions:

• Use bread flour
• Use double the amount of flour
• Use only brown sugar
• Use only cane sugar
• Stir the dough as little as possible
• Use applesauce

The list goes on and on. I still have yet to produce chocolate chips that rival the Toll House ready-bake ones (and I am -seriously- ashamed of this) or my mother's, both of which taste chewy and lovely like they were made by an actually competent baker.

So, of course, when I discovered a chocolate chip recipe in The Cookbook, I simply had to try it. If anyone could solve my chocolate chip cookie dilemma, it had to be Bisnonna.

In some ways she did. These cookies definitely did not turn out flat. They were nice puffy little balls of tasty. They are a little denser and more cake-like that other chocolate chip cookies that I have made in the past, however. I am definitely going to keep this recipe in my arsenal, but the search goes on.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

via The Cookbook (attributed to Prozia Celi)

1 c. crisco, 3/4 c. brown sugar, 3/4 c. white sugar, 1t vanilla, 2 eggs, 3 c. flour, 1 t baking soda, 1/2 t salt, 1 6oz package chocolate chips, 1 c. nuts

Bake 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes

Madre adds: If you want the other recipe for the chocolate chip cookies that Grandma made, look on a bag of chocolate chips. When she didn't use this recipe, she used the original Toll House recipe. 

[Apparently I'm just incapable of recreating the bag of chips recipe.]

Prozia's Apple Cake [The Cookbook]

Ideally, I would have posted this last week, but I didn't get around to baking until Wednesday night. 

A few days ago, I noticed one of the trees outside my apartment had developed red leaves signifying the start of fall. Early fall is full of beautiful things, but one of my favorites is fresh apples. What better time to highlight some of the exciting apple recipes in The Cookbook. 

Since I had fresh apples, I decided to begin with an apple cake recipe, which according to The Cookbook was given to Bisnonna by her sister Celi. My Prozias (great-aunts) will likely appear a lot of this blog as I have many memories attached to their cooking as well. While I don't remember this particular cake, I can tell you that I am -glad- that I made it.

I made a slight modification to this recipe as well. The original calls for 1 3/4 cups of sugar. I substituted 1 cup of sugar and 3/4 cup honey. There's no real explanation for this choice beyond the spirit of experimentation. I also left out the powdered sugar and whipped cream, using it as more of a breakfast cake, but I imagine that it would be scrumptious as a dessert as well.

Apple Cake

Via The Cookbook

3 eggs, 1 3/4 c. sugar, 1 c. oil, 2 c. flour, 1 t. baking soda, 1 t. cinnamon, pinch salt, 4-6 diced apples, 1/2 c. nuts

Bake for 1hr. at 350 degrees or 325 if using a glass pan. Sprinkle with powder sugar, can be served with whipped cream.