Daring Bakers Challenge: Cannoli (and one spectacular failure)

Wait a minute... that's no cannoli!

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

First of all, this is certainly not the post to come to to perv on Daring Bakers success. You want amazing? Head over to my lovely friends at Eat, Show and Tell. But hey, feel free to stay and have a laugh at my expense. Seriously, I won't mind because The Captain is. :D

This month, I was strangely unexcited by the challenge. Blame that on October's super macaron burnout but as far I know, my piping bag just had to be stashed away in a dark place. Last week with Sydney suffering under scorching 41°C days, my thoughts were on naked beach frolicking and parking my butt in front of my air-conditioner, not deep frying and hot oil! Besides I'm the last minute queen remember? I have a reputation to uphold.

Even a failed Daring Baker's Challenge can be soothed by ice cream!

So what went wrong?

Everything seemed easy enough. Until it was time to roll the dough! Jebus, bloody hell that dough was stubborn and try as I might, I just couldn't roll it thinly enough (these damn scrawny arms of mine!). Secondly my plans for a cannoli stack went awry. And this is where it gets real sad...

My poor cutout circles of dough shrunk to beastly oblong eyesores and puffed up like an ugly blowfish in the oil. Even after I pedantically docked the whole thing (and I'm talking about some frantic stabbing fork movements!), it still puffed. And since my dough was too thick, it just couldn't crisp up and blister. I ended up with flabby donut like thingies.

But you'll never guess what?...

These weird donut thingies were the bomb! The cinnamon and the sweet, aromatic red wine that I used gave the dough an amazing flavour. They also had the most wonderful bite to them and the thick doughiness of the middle was so good! After enjoying these extraterrestial red wine cinnamon donut thingies, I actually forgot that they were suppose to be crispy cannoli shells. And I didn't mind one bit.

So it all worked out?

Ah, well not quite. I felt I was doing Lisa Michele an injustice, as it was a good challenge and recipe. In any case, there's only one way to soothe an irritated soul:

1. Take one giant tub of ice cream. Umm coffee...

2. Take a giant spoonful... you know... just to test it out.

3. Take the angry strips of alien donut thingies and plunge manically into the tub of ice cream.

4. Eat, then proceed to vent it out on Twitter.

A big thanks to Lisa Michele for a great challenge (check her blog or The Daring Kitchen for the recipe). One day I will redeem myself with the cannoli!