Low-Fat Cannoli – Save Room for Dessert – Chasing MY Life WHEREVER it Leads ME

Hello, friends! Did you have a good weekend? Well I hope you saved room for dessert!

Recently my husband and I discussed the idea of healthier, or at least less unhealthy, desserts. And I guess he has a point. If I have to make a dessert a week, they should probably not all be totally disgusting and artery clogging.

And they can still be tasty!

So I bring you today’s offering: Low-fat cannoli!

It’s pretty simple, really. The most time-consuming part of draining the ricotta – you want it to be dry so it’s not runny and messy when you pipe it into the cannoli shell. I used a knee high stocking to drain, but that’s only because I never see cheesecloth in the story when I’m actually thinking about it. So I buy new knee highs and voila! 🙂

I dumped all 2 lbs of part-skim ricotta into my mixer. After whipping for a bit, though, I knew it was going to keep its grainy texture so I moved everything to the food processor. I’m sure the blender would work just as well, of course! When it was in the mixer bowl, I added…

2 tsp of vanilla extract

And 1 cup of powdered sugar. I’m sure this is all “to taste” – maybe if you like a little liqueur flavor you could add that as well. I know there’s all sorts of things you can add but I like to keep it simple. And from what I understand from my husband, aka The Cannoli King, the taste is pretty much spot-on.

Whir it around and around until it’s smooth.

Then fold in 1/2 cup of mini chocolate chips. This is the good stuff here, people.

This filling went into my Pampered Chef decorator with the biggest tip I could find – those mini chips can clog up a piping tip, let me tell ya.

And once the shells were filled (you can find them at just about any grocery store), I sprinkled more chips on the ends.

The texture is still a liiiiiittle off of your normal cannoli, but then you’re trading texture for a lower amount of fat. And that’s not a bad thing, right?

Enjoy!