Cannoli Ice Cream That’s Ridiculously Easy but Perfectly Delicious

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I’m really into the ease of making 2 ingredient ice creams. It’s a creative base upon which to make whatever flavor you want. And when I asked my husband what he wanted, the resounding answer was CANNOLI ICE CREAM!

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What are Cannoli?

Cannoli are Italian pastries made from a thin, crispy fried dough, molded into a tube and filled with sweetened ricotta and mascarpone, chocolate chips, and garnished with cherries or pistachios.

One of these days I’ll have to make these for you all because they’re amazing. We even have cannoli tubes already! But you know how much I love deep frying things… haha!

Cannoli Flavor Made Easy

So what does a cannoli taste like? The exterior of a really fresh one is crisp and not too oily from being fried. The ends are dipped in chocolate and often rolled in chopped pistachios, so you get that salty, bittersweet combo.

Then the filling is a creamy concoction tinged with cinnamon and nutmeg and studded with mini chocolate chips. If you’re lucky, the ends are studded with maraschino cherries. This is the ultimate cannoli.

The Mix-Ins for Cannoli Ice Cream

There are a lot of components to a cannoli, it seems, right? So, let’s break it down and make this easier for ourselves.

The Cannoli Shell

Honest to goodness, I considered making cannoli shells just to break them up and put them in my ice cream. After a bit more thought, though, I realized there was an easier way.

Instead of going the distance and making perfectly good shells only to destroy them, pick up a package of pizzelles. They are a lightly sweet, wafer-crisp Italian cookie made in a special griddle mold. This is another thing I actually do have the mold to make but just haven’t yet. Ha!

The Cannoli Filling

Now, traditionally cannoli filling is a mixture of ricotta and mascarpone. For ice cream, though, we just want mascarpone. No need to go too nuts here.

Mascarpone is thick and creamy and helps with the luscious texture of the ice cream. Ricotta, on the other hand, is a bit watery and leads to unwanted ice crystal formation.

To make sure it incorporates thoroughly, I just mix softened mascarpone in with the sweetened condensed milk before adding it to the whipped cream.

Getting the Flavors Right for Cannoli Ice Cream

You do need a little cinnamon and nutmeg to really hit home the cannoli ice cream experience. It’s very very little though. We only need a whisper.

The chocolate chips need to be mini. I don’t know about you, but biting into a big frozen chip feels like a dental disaster. Minis are just nicer to your teeth.

Pistachios are optional in our house. You need to take off the skins and chop them, and that just seemed like a daunting amount of work for something my husband doesn’t even like.

Maraschino cherries, however, are mandatory (in our house). You want to halve them so you don’t get mouthfuls of cherry. Instead, you want a little bit here and there.

Altogether, this makes it taste exactly like a cannoli.

The Cannoli Ice Cream Toolkit

What do you need to make cannoli ice cream? Well, since we’ve taken making our own cannoli shells off the table, you only need a few simple things that you might already have.

• Stand mixer with a whisk attachment This just takes the work out of whipping heavy cream by hand. And I really love my mixer for most of my recipes.
• Glass loaf pan so your ice cream scoop doesn’t scratch your nonstick; this one comes with a lid so you don’t have to fuss with plastic wrap.
• Ice cream scoop This is like mine. It’s just a standard nonstick scoop with anti-freezing liquid in the handle so your hand doesn’t go numb.
• Knives for chopping up cherries and pistachios, if you want them.
• Cutting board, again, for chopping up your mix-ins.

See? There’s nothing to it! All it takes is a bit of mixing and some freeze time, and you’re on your way to gloriously luscious cannoli ice cream by this evening.

Comment below and let me know how yours turned out! And don’t forget to subscribe for my weekly updates and a free meal planning worksheet!

Cannoli Ice Cream

Using a 2-Ingredient ice cream base, cannoli ice cream folds together simple ingredients for a sinfully delicious result!

4 from 1 vote

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Freezing Time 3 hours hrs

Course Dessert

Cuisine American, Italian

Servings 8 servings

Equipment

• Stand mixer with a whisk attachment
• Loaf Pan
• Small mixing bowl
• Spatula

Ingredients

  

• 1 pint heavy cream
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• ½ cup mascarpone room temperature
• ⅛ tsp cinnamon
• 1 pinch nutmeg 1/16 tsp, if you want to be specific
• ⅛ tsp salt
• ½ cup maraschino cherries chopped
• ½ cup mini chocolate chips
• 5 pizzelle cookies lightly crushed

Instructions

 

• In the bowl of the stand mixer, whip the heavy cream until it becomes a stiff whipped cream. Do not over mix.
• Mix together the mascarpone and sweetened condensed milk in the small mixing bowl until smooth. Fold this into your whipped cream.
• Fold in the cherries, mini chocolate chips, and crushed pizzelle cookies to distribute.
• Spread the ice cream into your loaf pan. Cover with plastic wrap or alternative wrap, and freeze for at least 3 hours to solidify before serving.

Keyword Cannoli, Cherry, Chocolate Chip, Ice Cream, Mascarpone

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