Cannoli Ice Cream: Toppings Megabus

If only pistachios were $5. Not that Megabus is even $5 dollars these days. Sorry Boston friends. You are definitely worth the $35 or whatever they charge these days though. Friendships are worth above money. Though there is a certain element of responsiveness and genuine communication that seems to falter despite all the forms of "talking" we seem to have these days.

quality photo right there. the makings of a true food photographer.

Anyways, to break the 4th or whatever wall I seem to avoid by trying to make my posts timeless, its already Friday at midnight, I'm rather sleepy and running on 22% battery-life, so I'll have to make this fast and not-so-cute. Basically, banana loaf lasagnas means left over ricotta. Which means cannoli ice cream. Which means an abundance of toppings. Probably a little too much-pistachio, chocolate chips, and crushed sugar cones. The original recipe called for actual homemade cannoli shells, but I don't have that kind of time, so sugar cones it was. The beauty of ice cream toppings is that you can add or subtract whatever you want without a major recipe make over.



 Unfortunately, I forgot that sugar cones get soggy. While the crunchy was great when the ice cream was freshly churned, it wasn't so awesome on the 3rd day or so. Not sure if homemade cannoli shells would have that same effect, but I'm curious now since that wasn't really a disclaimer in the original recipe. The ice cream itself is absurdly easy since all the richness derives from the ricotta and your typical mixture of milk and cream rather than cooking a custard. I was a bit skeptical about whether it would actually taste like a cannoli both because 1) There was a lack of mascarpone which seems like a necessary staple for most real cannolis, 2) I've only had 2-3 cannolis in my current existing life so can I really recognize cannoli in ice cream form?, and 3) My last few ice creams have been kind of a miss on the full flavor side.

This time around though, it was obvious that the ice cream base was creamy in that cannoli sort of way. I've never been a big fan of chocolate chips in ice cream, but added them in just to try it out. Still don't really like chocolate chips, but loved the ice cream anyways, especially the pistachios and sugar cones in their non-soggy state. Maybe next time I'll try chocolate flakes because chocolate is still delicious. Just not in crunchy rock hard chip form. Gosh, imagine if I used full sized chips and not mini ones. That would have been a disaster.

As a general update, I ended up running to reserve battery power at the beginning of that last paragraph, so I had to grab my charger. I could re-edit this so that you would never know that I was in the midst of a battery crisis, but I like adding an edge of danger to my posts. Sorry that was a bit too hyperbolic even for me.

Recipe from Cooking Classy (yay alliterations!). I used a hand mixer with a whisk to blend the base since my blender was a bit occupied by pesto. I was concerned I would make whipped cream, but mixing with a spoon when it got too foamy seemed to resolve this. The final base was a little grainy from the ricotta, but the final product was still creamy.