Cannoli Cake: The Best of Two Great Desserts!
Today I’m transforming one of my favorite Italian desserts into a beautiful layer cake! This cannoli cake is made with three soft, tender, and moist vanilla cake layers (I borrowed heavily from my chantilly cake to make these) cloaked in a frosting inspired by cannoli filling. These components works beautifully together to give the cake a true cannoli feel.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Seriously irresistible frosting that tastes just like cannoli filling. This is the true star of this recipe! It’s made without butter, and is perfectly balanced with the right sweetness level. I could eat it by the spoonful 😋 Uses the reverse creaming method, which creates a tender, slightly dense crumb AND as a plus, is very hard to over-mix (so it’s great for beginner bakers!). I first shared this method years ago with my caramel cake, and I’ve been a fan ever since! Easy decoration and assembly. I just use chocolate chips to decorate my cannoli cake, but you could get fancy with it and add chopped pistachios or even add some mini cannoli on top! Perfect for a crowd. Instead of filling a bunch of cannoli shells, why not just serve an equally tasty cannoli cake?
This cannoli cake would be the perfect finale to an Italian-inspired dinner, like my penne alla vodka or baked ziti!
Ingredients
We’ll use a few key ingredients to achieve a flavorful, tender cake with a classic cannoli taste.
Ricotta. Just like when making my lasagna recipe, you want to make sure to use whole milk ricotta here. We will be straining this before adding it to our frosting; this ensures our frosting will have the right texture, otherwise it would be too runny. Buttermilk. My easy buttermilk substitute will work in a pinch, but real buttermilk will provide the best flavor and moisture. Softened butter. Unlike many cake recipes, we will not be creaming the butter and sugar together for this cannoli cake. Instead, we will be beating the butter into the dry ingredients one tablespoon at a time. This is the reverse creaming method! It’s a bit different than the norm, but I love the results and use it in many recipes (like my caramel cake and snickerdoodle cake). Mascarpone. A key component you might recognize from making tiramisu, mascarpone adds flavor to our frosting alongside the ricotta. Make sure to bring yours out of the fridge for just 15-20 minutes beforehand; if it’s too cold or warm, it can be a challenge to work with. Cinnamon. This rounds out the flavor of the frosting and really adds to that authentic cannoli taste!
SAM’S TIP: As always, room temperature eggs are best here. They will break up and combine with your other ingredients MUCH more easily if they aren’t straight from the fridge. If you forget to set your eggs out ahead of time, use my trick to quickly bring eggs to room temperature. This is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe and video, please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make Cannoli Cake
Strain the Ricotta
Prepare the Cake Layers
SAM’S TIP: Always prep your cake pans! Grease, flour, and line them with parchment rounds so there is NO chance of your cannoli cake layers sticking to the pans.
Make the Frosting
Assembly
SAM’S TIP: Because this frosting is so soft, I really recommend doing a crumb coat before adding your final layer of frosting. It will make decorating the cake so much easier! If you haven’t done one before, I discuss this in my post on how to decorate a cake. I’ve been on a bit of a cake kick lately–just wait until you see my next one 🌴 Enjoy! Let’s bake together! Subscribe to my newsletter to be notified of all the newest recipes, and find my free recipe tutorials on YouTube 💜
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