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.
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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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Thank you for a wonderful recipe! I made this last year for a holiday gathering, and it received rave reviews. I would like to make it again for a work function, but I’m not sure how far in advance it can be made. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
I’m glad you enjoyed it! You should be able to make it two to three days in advance and cover it well and it last fine.
I tried this recipe and love the taste of the filling, but for some reason, I couldn’t get it to set! Any idea why?
★★★★★
There are two possibilities. One is that I know people often like to reduce sugar amounts, but you want to be sure to use the powdered sugar in the whipped cream to help with stability. The other possibility is that the mascarpone cheese was over mixed or got too warm. “Room temperature” can kind of vary from home to home, so you want it to be soft enough to mix into the filling, but still have a little chill to it. If it gets too warm or is over mixed, it often softens and doesn’t firm back up well.
Can you make this tart fit an 11 inch tart dish? Like what kind of adjustments in terms of ingredients would I have to do in order to fit a tart that size? I’m asking since I don’t currently own a 9 inch tart and it’s impossible for me to find one in store where I live.
I’m not really sure, since I haven’t made it at that size before. You could try using 1 1/2 recipes worth. If there’s a little extra filling, you don’t have to add it all.
How many slices are generally cut for the 9″ tart? I don’t want to appear ‘cheap’, but if possible would like to only bake 1.
With decent size slices, I’d say 8-10.
I tried this recipe and love the taste of the filling, but for some reason, I couldn’t get it to set! Any idea why?
One possibility is over mixing. Mascarpone cheese can thin out if over mixed and it doesn’t really firm back up when that happens.
This recipe looks amazing and I plan to make it for a dinner party, I only have an 11 inch tart plan..do you by any chance have the recipe adjustments for this size pan?
Do you know how/if this recipe might freeze?
I haven’t tried it, so I’m not sure.
I only have 8oz of mascarpone on hand, is there anything I can add or do you think the 8oz would work? Thanks!
You could try a little ricotta, if you have that.
I made this yesterday and it’s sweet but found it tastes nothing like cannoli filling. I think I just miss the ricotta. Thank you for the recipe, it was definitely worth trying.
You could certainly swap out some of the mascarpone for ricotta. I find most cannoli fillings are some mix of the two, I’ve just had people who have issues with the water in it so I went with all mascarpone in this tart.
i made a cannoli cake using your cannoli cream recipe. THANK YOU for not using ricotta!! I made a cinnamon spice cake and your cannoli cream recipe as the frosting with mini chocolate chips to decorate. It looked and tasted amazing.
I’m glad you enjoyed it! The cake sounds delicious!