I love Italian food's flavor an cooking methods, the techniques you use are very simple but produce a very complex taste. In this instructable I will show you how to make cannoli shells from scratch.

Step 1: The Ingredients and Materials

To make the cannoli shells you will need the following:

2 cups of all purpose flour
1 tbsp of dark drown sugar
1/8 tsp of salt
3 tbsp of softened butter
2 egg yolks
1/4 tsp of nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
3 oz. of sweet Marsala wine

1. Mix the everything but the Marsala in a bowl with a pastry cutter until it is crumbly, the butter and egg yolks should be thoroughly mixed.
2. Add in the wine 1 oz at a time, until you are able to mix it with your hands.
3. Form into a ball and let sit uncovered for 30 minutes.

While the dough is resting we will form the cannoli tubes out of foil.

Step 2: Making Cannoli Tubes

For the structure of the cannoli tubes we will use aluminum foil. I used foil that was 12 inches wide and folded it in half to make it thicker. The dowel I used was 1 1/4 inch in diameter, I let the foil overlap on the dowel about 3 times to strengthen it as well. Doing some simple math I know I need the length of the foil to be 12 inches long [3(1.25 x 3.14) ≈ 12 inches]. For this dowel we will need a sheet that is 12 inches x 12 inches

Fold the foil in half with the dull side out.
Roll it tightly around the dowel.
Slid off and make a few more.

Try not to crush the foil, but make it so you can slide it back onto the dowel when putting on the disk of dough and seal the ends so it does not come apart when frying.

Step 3: Forming the Cannoli

After the dough has sat for 30 minutes lightly flour a surface big enough to roll the dough out on.
When you are done rolling it out the thickness should be just thinner then the thickness of a quarter.
Make sure the diameter of the cannoli disk is about 5 to 6 inches.
Drape it over the foil covered dowel, lightly wet one end with water and overlap the ends and press it flat so they are joined together.
Repeat until the forms are all used. You can use each foil form a few times before it become useless.

Step 4: Frying the Cannoli

Once formed Deep fry them at 360°F until they are golden brown.
They will roll over during frying so try to rotate them so they fry evenly.
Once they are done frying pluck them from the oil and let them drain and cool on a paper towel.
After about 3 minutes you can remove the foil form.
Let the form cool for an additional 2 minutes then wrap another dough disk around the foil tube and fry it as well.
Once they are cooled you should have about a dozen cannoli shells with this recipe.

Step 5: Ideas for Filling

Now that you have the shells made you will need to fill them.

You can try my Cinnabon cannoli recipe here if you want: https://www.instructables.com/id/Cinnabon-Cannoli/
Or if you want a more traditional recipe you can just use some ricotta cheese slightly sweetened with some powered sugar.

Either way you choose, enjoy!