Orange Chocolate Chip Cannoli Cups

This week's challenge was frosting or filling. I am not a huge fan of frosting because it's way too sweet for me, so I started thinking about fillings. Cannoli's kept coming to mind, but I have never made them, nor do I own cannoli forms. I really didn't want to have to go searching all over Maryland for the forms, so I finally decided to try something different. I had some puff pastry in the freezer, so I figured I would go with that.

1 sheet of puff pastry
flour
cooking spray
1 15 oz container of whole milk ricotta
mini chocolate chips
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp orange liquor
2 tbsp orange zest

The first thing I did was dump the whole container of ricotta into a cheese cloth lined strainer. All the recipes I read said to let it sit this way for about an hour. I kept moving mine around every 15 minutes or so, since that seemed to help with removing some moisture.

Next I started working on the cups. I knew puff pastry wasn't really perfect for this, but I was being way too lazy to make proper cannoli shells. I started by putting some flour on a large wooden board, then laying the pastry flat. I figured that I really wanted to make it a little thinner, so I ran my rolling pin over it until it was almost as large as the board.

Next, I used a pizza cutter to cut the sheet into 12 pieces.

I sprayed two cup cake tins really well with cooking spray, then sprinkled them with powder and shook them up until they were well coated, to prevent sticking. Then I carefully lined each one with a piece of the pastry.

I baked these at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes.

They still came out puffier than I wanted them, so I carefully crushed the centers a bit to allow room for the filling, then I moved them to a plate.

While they were baking, I started working on the filling. First, I zested an orange.

I added the orange zest, powdered sugar, about 1/2 cup of the mini chips, the vanilla extract, and liquor to a bowl and mixed well. When the cheese had been sitting for over an hour, I mixed that into the bowl.

I moved the filling mix to a plastic baggie, and put it in the fridge to chill for an hour.

Now that the filling is well chilled, it's time to fill the cups. Tilt the bag on it's side and snip a small piece off the corner to create a piping bag.

Use that corner of the bag to fill your cups. You can be generous, as I had a little too much filling.

Now, top them all with more mini chips, and you're ready to eat!