This Cannoli Tart has all the great flavors of a cannoli wrapped into one simple tart! With a touch of cinnamon and mini chocolate chips, it’s got all the things I love most about cannolis.
Table of Contents
Cannoli Tart
So I spent most of my baking time this past week on this one darn recipe for the cookbook. It just would not cooperate. It wasn’t bad, per se, but it also wasn’t just right. And truly, I’m quite picky. Especially when it comes to a book that’s going to be published. Talk about scary.
So I had several versions of said recipe stacked in several cupcake carriers around the kitchen. Saturday morning I came down early to keep working on it. Several hours later when the hubs came down, he revealed that he’d had trouble sleeping the night before and when he came downstairs to watch tv, he got into the cupcakes.
Of course my brain immediately went into panic mode – for about 5 seconds. Did he eat ones I needed for comparison purposes?! Oh no!
But then he followed up with, “But I ate ones from different tiers so they weren’t all the same batch.”
Phew! 😉
He could see my relief – and laughter – and claimed that he was proud of himself because he now knows how to properly steal cupcakes from me. Ha! Thief!
It was also his birthday, so I couldn’t be too mad. 🙂
This cannoli tart is absolutely worthy of some major thievery.
If you’ve hung around this blog for a while, you’ve probably realized that I love cannoli desserts. I don’t always love getting cannolis from bakeries. I find they tend be to super sweet, which is weird to hear me say, but it’s true. But I love making my own cannoli-inspired desserts. A cannoli poke cake, cannoli icebox cake and now a tart. And I’m sure there’s more to come. I can make them just sweet enough with just the right amount of cinnamon. Mmm mm mm!
And this particular dessert is nice because it’s so easy. It’s almost completely no bake, but I did actually bake the crust. I wanted to be sure it held together a little better when sliced.
How to Make a Cannoli Tart
The filling is made first by making homemade whipped cream. It lightens up the tart filling nicely.
The next step is to combine the mascarpone cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla and cinnamon. I love using mascarpone cheese. It’s so darn yummy. Some cannolis actually use a combination of mascarpone and ricotta, but because ricotta can be a little finicky with the amount of water I stuck to mascarpone. Feel free to replace some of it with ricotta if you prefer.
Carefully fold the whipped cream into the mascarpone mixture. You want to use a folding motion so that you don’t deflate the whipped cream.
Spread the filling into the tart, top with some mini chocolate chips and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Refrigerate it until firm and devour! Such an easy to way to enjoy a wonderful cannoli dessert! Yum!!
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Cannoli Tart
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 7 minutes
- Total Time: 17 minutes
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Description
This Cannoli Tart has all the great flavors of a cannoli wrapped into one simple tart! With a touch of cinnamon and mini chocolate chips, it’s got all the things I love most about cannolis.
Ingredients
CRUST
- 1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 5 tbsp butter, melted
CANNOLI FILLING
- 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
- 3/4 cup powdered sugar, divided
- 12 oz mascarpone cheese, room temperature
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- mini chocolate chips, for topping
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees and grease a 9 inch tart pan.
2. Combine ingredients for crust and press into the bottom and up the sides of the pan.
3. Bake crust for 7 minutes, then remove from oven and allow to cool completely.
4. To make the whipped cream, whip heavy whipping cream on high speed for 2-3 minutes. Cream will initially bubble a little bit, then start to thicken.
5. As the cream starts to thicken, add 1/4 cup of powdered sugar.
6. Whip on high until stiff peaks form, for a total whipping time of about 5-7 minutes.
7. Set whipped cream aside and combine mascarpone cheese, remaining powdered sugar, vanilla extract and cinnamon. Mix on slow speed until combined. Do not over mix.
8. Carefully fold the whipped cream into the mascarpone mixture.
9. Spread filling into the tart crust and refrigerate until firm, 3-4 hours.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Silce
- Calories: 459
- Sugar: 19.1 g
- Sodium: 157.1 mg
- Fat: 35.9 g
- Carbohydrates: 31.3 g
- Protein: 4.9 g
- Cholesterol: 98.3 mg
Keywords: cannoli dessert, cannoli recipe, cannoli filling recipe, cannoli cream recipe, tart recipe, tart crust recipe, italian dessert, italian dessert recipe
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Enjoy!
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Yet another winner Lindsay – thank you! My daughter is the resident cannoli-lover in the family and agrees this tastes just like the inside of a cannoli 🙂 Blogged about it and linked back to your recipe.
https://www.weirdlittlefrenchcookie.com/cannoli-tart/
Thanks so much Tiffany! Glad to hear everyone enjoyed it! 🙂
I’m making their recipe and using 4” tart pans. Thinking of using some Baileys Irish cream in filling. Nit sure how much because I don’t want to thin it down too much.
Hi there,
Going to an Italian themed party and this sounds soooo good. The hostess isn’t a graham cracker fan. Have you ever tried it with a different crust like almond or something?
Thanks for the recipe. I’m going to try it regardless of crust!!
You could try a vanilla cookie – like a vanilla wafer. It should be a 1:1 swap for the graham cracker crumbs.
I made your awesome Cannoli Tart this weekend with the vanilla wafer crust. It was a huge hit! Served it with coffee and cinnamon gelato… YUM!!
I appreciate you!
Kathy ????
PS there were no leftovers so I’m making it again today for Valentine’s Day for my husband and son ????
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! The coffee and cinnamon gelato sounds perfect!
Agh i need to make this tomorrow and I don’t have mini chocolate chips cause it’s not in the ingredients. 🤦😂
I had this at a friend’s house and it was absolutely delicious! I’m going to make it for my family today. 🙂
Wonderful! 🙂 I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
A Cannoli Tart!! You had me at hello! Shared on my Chat’s Meow – Cats, Crochet, Coffee, and Chocolate facebook page! https://www.facebook.com/chatsmeowandmore
Oh wow, this tart looks way better than any cannoli! The filling looks so rich and creamy, mmm 🙂
I can’t wait to try this recipe. I have made your cannoli poke & icebox cakes. We love a great cannoli but they are hard to find in Arizona. Thank goodness we have relatives in New Jersey. We eat real cannoli the whole time we are there.
We received Cabello from Carlos’ Bakery in Hoboken for Christmas. Delicious! They made in trip in great condition. We highly recommend them.
Just curious: why did you choose a graham crust over a buttery pie crust?
It’s been along time since I created this recipe. I can’t say I remember exactly why. But either would probably taste great.
JUST YES!
Oh man, where’s my shovel? I mean fork! This tart looks amazing!
I love that your husband knows the rules of cupcake tiers. Food blogging families probably could start a support group about the weird food rules in their houses, like how my kids know not to touch anything until they confirm that it’s been photographed. Or how my husband tolerates all of my baking crap, even though he hates all that wasted cabinet space.
This looks better than any cannoli I’ve ever seen. Totally agreed about the bakery ones being kind of meh. I’ll do this one anytime!
This tart look heavenly! Love your blog. Your pictures are gorgeous!