cannoli cream filled donuts
kinda maritozzi, meets, well cannoli
hey hi hello!
A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to try one of Holly’s pretzelfied cream buns. In that moment, I remembered that bread + fresh whipped cream = the perfect treat every single time. As we all know, I don’t have a working oven right now, so for a second there my dreams of cream buns on tap were dashed. Until I realized, I can just fry the brioche instead of baking it. Which results in an even lighter and airier texture than if I baked the buns off.
I’ve been on a cannoli kick lately, mostly because I have half a bottle of marsala left from the cannoli tiramisu recipe I shared. Also, just because I love a cannoli, the creaminess from the ricotta, the refreshing hit from the zests, the bite from the mini chocolate chips, ugh so fucking good. Anything ultra creamy, I’m here for.
It’s also a great example for the creative exercise I outlined for you guys back in October. Where you take one thing, and think of all the ways you can rework that flavor profile into something else. This cream bun is easy, you just swap a cannoli shell out for a marsala spiked donut. For the tiramisu, you swap the mascarpone (soft cheese) out for ricotta (also, soft cheese) in the filling then add all the flavors that make a cannoli , a cannoli. This cannoli cheesecake tart builds off the same idea, a pistachio graham cracker crust, a light ricotta cheesecake studded with mini choc chips and all the same spices and zests as before.
This is a little bit of a recipe riff from the new and improved brioche donut recipe I shared last week. Though in the dough for flavor, but also the presence of alcohol inhibits a little bit of that gluten formation, making for a lighter bun over all. Though, you can not add the marsala in with the wet ingredients as the marsala in acidic and curdles the milk and coagulates the egg white proteins on direct contact. So, you add it in after the wets have a chance to incorporate with the dry ingredients. The whipped cream is stabilized with strained ricotta, and flavored with citrus zests and cinnamon
The recipe makes 12 buns, but, you can use the google excel sheet from THIS post to scale these recipes up and down as you please to better suit the batch sizes you wish to make :)