Tag: recipe

Ricotta cheese is one of the rare items I purchase at the grocery store, but I do need it occasionally. Sometimes, for savory applications like ravioli or lasagna, other times for desserts!

I was asked to make an Italian-inspired dessert for a client on this particular day. We discussed various ideas and settled on a cannoli-inspired cake. Cannoli filling is made from ricotta, powdered sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and chocolate chips. The cake would have four pistachio cake layers and three cannoli filling layers. The outside would be frosted with a buttercream comprised of half cream cheese and half Italian meringue, and finished off with a dark chocolate ganache top, marbled dark chocolate ganache sides, crushed pistachios on top, and a chocolate chip boarder around the bottom.

I noticed no ricotta at the grocery store but plenty of whole milk. I didn’t have time to look for one item, so I grabbed the milk and headed home to make it. The process is simple enough but a little time-consuming when it comes to removing the whey from the cheese. It is well worth it, as the texture and flavor are superior to any grocery store product.

Please enjoy learning to make ricotta cheese with me, as I demonstrate in the YouTube video below. You can also pick up a few gardening tips along the way!

After making the cheese, I needed to bake off the pistachio cakes and turn the ricotta into cannoli filling. Please enjoy the YouTube video of that process. It also includes the recipe I used for the pistachio cake.

Finally, my cake layers had cooled, and it was time to torte, fill, stack, and build the final cake. Depending on thickness, it always takes a few hours for cake layers to cool off, but I don’t mind. It gives me time to work on the homework side of my graduate program!

I’ve noticed some bakers prefer to bake their layers individually so they do not have to cut them. This is a big pet peeve of mine because I do not like thick cake layers. I’ve met people who do not like cake. I truly believe it is because they’ve never actually had a good one. Cake layers should be thin. If the layers are too big and the filling is too thin, the result can be a dry and unpleasant cake. One should not require a large glass of milk, even though it is good with dessert, to prevent a cake choking hazard.

Please enjoy the cannoli cake stacking, filling, and decorating process in the YouTube video below.

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