Puff pastry cannoli with mortadella and pistachio cream belong to the category of appetizers exquisite finger food, refined, perfect for festive tables such as Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Easter, and special occasions. They can also be served at a buffet as a snack for aperitifs by reducing their size. In short, with a few simple ingredients, we will impress our guests. Both the puff pastry cannoli and the cream with mortadella and pistachios can be made well in advance, with the caution of keeping the cream in the fridge until ready to use and storing the cannoli in a food bag. Remember that the cannoli should be filled only at the last moment to keep them crunchy.
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very cheap
- Rest time: 15 Minutes
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 7
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons, Christmas
Ingredients
- 1 roll round puff pastry (also gluten-free)
- 14 oz cream cheese (also lactose-free)
- 3 slices mortadella with pistachios (also gluten-free)
- to taste freshly ground pepper
- 2 oz chopped pistachios
Tools
- 1 Pastry cutter 4 inches in diameter
- 7 parchment paper squares 6 by 6 inches
- 7 Molds for cannoli
- 1 Pastry bag
Preparation
1) Unroll the puff pastry and, using a pastry cutter or glass, cut out circles 4 inches in diameter.
2) Cut 7 squares of parchment paper, dampen them on one side only, and wrap the damp side around the mold, pressing the edges with your fingers to adhere well; this way, the cannoli will easily slip off the molds.
3) Wrap each circle of puff pastry around a mold already lined with parchment paper and ensure that the edges of the pastry overlap; press them lightly to avoid them opening during baking.
As we form the cannoli, place them, with the closure facing down, on a baking sheet also covered with parchment paper.
Place the baking sheet in the coldest part of the fridge and leave them for about 15 minutes while preheating the oven to 392°F. Puff pastry, in fact, does not like to be handled too much because it overheats and the final result would be a product that doesn’t puff and doesn’t flake during baking.
4) After 15 minutes, take the baking sheet out and bake it in the oven already hot, at mid-height, for about 20 minutes, until the cannoli are well cooked and puffed.
5) Take them out of the oven immediately and let them cool before touching them to avoid breaking.
6) In the meantime, prepare the cream with mortadella and pistachios. In a blender, put 3 slices of shredded mortadella, ground pepper, 1 oz of unsalted pistachios, the cream cheese, and blend until smooth and lump-free. Taste and adjust for salt if necessary.
7) Put the cream in a piping bag, cut off the tip, and fill all the cannoli. Chop the remaining pistachios, place them in a shallow bowl, and coat the ends of our savory cannoli.
Extra idea if we don’t have molds. If we don’t have cannoli molds or don’t have enough, we can do this: cut two small squares of parchment paper about 6 x 6 inches for each cannoli.
Dampen only one side of one of the squares and place the second square on that side; then roll them together, tightly. In this way, the two sheets put together and rolled up will replace the steel molds.
Form the cannoli: roll (not tightly) each circle of puff pastry around a finger, forming a cannoli. Slide the cannoli off the finger and insert the rolled parchment paper inside. Place them on the baking sheet, with the closure of the cannoli we have formed facing down, and proceed to put them in the fridge as described above.
