Cannoli

Cannoli (makes approx. 20 + pieces):

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cook time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

Vegan Dough (Option to fry or oven-bake):

  • 2 cups (220 g) Grain Free Flour Mix, loosely spooned into measuring cup and levelled off
  • 3 tbsp coconut sugar
  • 500 -750 mL of coconut oil for frying plus more for greasing
  • 2/3 cup coconut yoghurt or yoghurt of choice
  • ¼ cup organic, sustainable, non-hydrogenated palm oil shortening (expeller pressed) (e.g., Brand- Spectrum Culinary)
  • ¼ cup apple cider vinegar

Non-vegan Dough- Contains dairy (Oven-bake only):

  • 2 cups (220 g) Grain Free Flour Mix, loosely spooned into measuring cup and levelled off
  • 3 tbsp coconut sugar
  • 2/3 cup coconut yoghurt or yoghurt of choice
  • 2 tbsp pure butter, chopped into pea-sized pieces
  • ¼ cup apple cider vinegar

Vanilla Custard Filling:

  • 5 large egg yolks
  • 1 can full-fat coconut milk (additive free)
  • ½ cup honey
  • ¼ cup + 2 tbsp tapioca flour
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • Optional: 3 tbsp cacao or carob powder (chocolate flavour)

Method:

Custard filling (Make day before):

  1. Add coconut milk to a small saucepan and bring to a gentle simmer.
  2. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together egg yolks, honey, vanilla, and tapioca flour. For chocolate filling, add cacao powder to the same bowl and mix vigorously until no clumps remain.
  3. Remove saucepan from heat and gently pour in half of the coconut milk whilst mixing vigorously. Ensure that milk isn’t too hot when adding to the eggs to avoid scrambling the eggs.
  4. Add mixture to remaining coconut milk and place back on the stove on medium heat.
  5. Whisk vigorously for a few minutes or until mixture thickens.
  6. Transfer custard to a glass container and allow to cool down to room temperature before placing a lid on top and moving to the fridge.
  7. Allow to cool and set overnight before piping custard into shells and dusting with tapioca flour or icing sugar.

Dough/Shells:

  1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius (non-fan forced) if using baking method. Alternatively, if frying shells (vegan dough only), add 500 mL of coconut oil to a small saucepan and allow to preheat 10 minutes before frying.
  2. Grease cannoli forms with coconut oil to prevent shells from sticking.
  3. In a medium mixing bowl, combine Grain Free Flour Mix and palm shortening OR butter by massaging shortening OR butter into flour using fingertips until a sand-like texture is achieved.
  4. Add in the coconut sugar, apple cider vinegar, and non-dairy yoghurt. Mix to combine until a smooth dough is formed.
  5. Taking a small piece of dough at a time, roll out dough to 1/8 -inch thickness between two pieces of parchment paper.
  6. Using a large circular cookie cutter (3 inch), cut out circular pieces of dough. Alternatively, place a mug on top of the rolled-out dough. Using a knife. trace around the perimeter of mug and gently peel away the excess dough. Add this back to the bowl to form additional shells.
  7. Take a circular piece of dough and gently wrap it around a cannoli form. Seal the edges together by pressing down gently.
  8. Gently roll a whisk from top to bottom of the shell whilst rotating the cannoli form to create indentations along the entire surface of the shell.
  9. For frying method (vegan-dough only), add shells one at a time to hot oil. Cook each shell for 1 minute or so or until shells harden and turn slightly golden. If the dough unravels and slides off the cannoli form shortly after being added to the oil, then the oil is not hot enough. Remove the dough from the oil and allow the oil to heat for a further 5-mins. Oil is hot enough when rapid bubbling occurs, and the dough remains intact around the cannoli form.
  10. Carefully remove shells from the hot oil using tongs and proceed to remove cannoli form by holding the tip of the metal form with a tea towel while gently pulling off the outer shell using tongs. Allow to cool and dry on paper towel.
  11. Repeat until all the dough has been used.
  12. Alternatively, for baking option, place all the shells onto a parchment lined baking tray in the middle of oven and bake for 15 minutes (vegan dough) or 20 minutes (non-vegan dough). Shells are considered ready once they harden and turn slightly golden.
  13. Carefully remove shells from cannoli form and allow to cool fully.