Sicilian Fried Stuffed Pastries (Sicily)

Desserts

Ingredients

Pastry:

All purpose flour - 1 1/4 cups

Cocoa - 1 1/4 tsps

Instant coffee - 1 tsp

Salt - pinch

Granulated sugar - 4 tsps

Lard or butter - 2 tbsps

Red or white wine or marsala - 1 cup

Filling:

Ricotta or cottage cheese - 1/2 pound

Confectioners sugar - 1 1/2 cups

Orange flower water - 4 tsps

Diced candied orange, citron or pumpkin - 1/3 cup

Bitter chocolate, crushed - 1 square

Oil for deep frying

Glace cherries- 12

Confectioners sugar

Pastry: Sift the flour, cocoa, instant coffee, salt and sugar into a bowl. Cut in the lard or butter and rub it into the flour. Then gradually add sufficent wine to make a firm dough. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic. Roll it out very thinly into a flat sheet and cut into 12 equal sized squares, each approximately 3 inches square. Put a metal tube diagonally on each square and bring the two corners over to meet in the middle. Press gently to seal.

Heat plenty of olive oil in a deep pan and deep fry the pastry covered tubes, one or two at a time, until dark golden and crisp. Take out with a perforated spoon and drain on paper towels, or better still, on a rack over absorbant paper. As soon as the tubes are cool enough to handle, take them gently out of the pastry, and then let the pastry become quite cold.

Meanwhile, prepare the filling.. Put all the filling ingredients into a bowl and blend thoroughly.

As soon as the pastry cases are ready, fill them neatly with the mixture, either with a spoon or a piping bag. Cut each if the cherries into two and put a piece at each end of the cannoli. Arrange them on a dish, sprinkle with confectioners sugar and serve immediately.

Serves 6