Grab a fork, this is not a drill! Pistachios, orange and dark chocolate with a fluffy ricotta filling coming at your Sunday morning. # 207: Pistachio Cannoli Cake

When certain ingredients make you smile from ear to ear, you should use them as much as possible! I don’t think I could ever get sick of pistachios, orange and chocolate. * Knocks on wood *

I’ve been in love with cannoli since Nate and I visited Mike’s Pastry in Boston. Here’s me drooling about the cannoli I had for breakfast. (It was vacation, ok??) I then caved and bought cannoli molds to try making my own lil dessert taquitos and I’ve never looked back.

This cake was a much easier way to get those flavors into my mouth – no frying or trying to get dough to stay put on the mold. Each layer is painted with melted chocolate which adds a fun crunchy element to each slice. Not the same as a fresh-out-the-fryer cannoli shell, but it’ll do. The solid chocolate shell definitely got in the way of slicing pretty pieces, but . . . worth it!

Cara Cara oranges might be my favorite citrus! Half a grapefruit, half an orange, it’s pink and the perfect combo of sweet and tart. The variation was first discovered in Venezuela in the 1970s and made it’s way to California via Florida.

I blitzed the pistachios in the food processor, but if you’re really looking for an arm workout or some stress relief, go the mortar and pestle route. Most of it goes into the cake batter to add a rich nuttiness, but a little bit is reserved for decorating the finished cake.

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Green cake batter hmm… It was actually a lovely pastel shade instead of the crazy green batter for those parsley cupcakes a few years ago. Ooph!

Ricotta and ravioli are soulmates, but occasionally ricotta dabbles in desserts. Using it as the base for the filling helps to balance out the sweetness. It adds a little savory sumthin’ sumthin’.

The recipe called for candied orange peel for the filling, but orange zest works just fine too! If you have a time machine, pop back two days to make your own candied orange peel.

Aww yeahh.

The calm before the storm. Forecast says lots of melted chocolate everywhere and a trail of pistachios through the living room and kitchen. (Sorry Nate!)

Nothing like an art project with edible ingredients! I’m sure there’s some way to do it and walk away with clean hands, but where’s the fun in that? I’ll reserve more of the pistachios for decorating next time – I was running low by the third layer so it became a bit more abstract.

Sometimes you gotta make the tough decision between a cake that will cut prettily, and a cake that has the amount of filling it deserves. Luckily, my kitchen runs on the rule of “as long as it tastes good, who cares what it looks like?” More filling it is!

Messy but happy!

When in doubt, break out the powdered sugar for an impromptu snowstorm!

True to form, it was pretty difficult to cut a neat and tidy slice. You can blame it on the painted chocolate on the outside of the cake, as well as the chocolate chunks in the filling. But don’t worry, as soon as you take a bite, you’ll forget all your chocolate annoyance immediately.

Happy munching!

Recipe mostly from: https://www.marthastewart.com/1514853/pistachio-cannoli-cake