I know, St. Joseph's Day was yesterday, but I am posting this today. Lots of silly reasons why, but I'm not getting into it now. For those of you who don't know, I am Italian. All four of my grandparents came here from Italy. While I never knew my father's parents because they both died before I was born, I was very close to my mother's parents. Some of my roots go back to Sicily, and St. Joseph's day is a big deal Sicilian holiday. However, for some strange reason, I don't remember ever celebrating it as a child, which is funny, since my mother's name was Josephine. My first recollection of St. Joseph's day was years ago, when a co-worker of mine, whose name was Joe, used to bring St. Joseph's pastries into school to share with our students on St. Joseph's day. (Those were the good 'ole days; I'm sure that would never be allowed today, what with allergies, nutrition guidelines and so forth--how sad.)
I kind of forgot all about this feast day until this year when my church had a St. Joseph's pot luck feast complete with the little altar thingy and statue of St. Joseph. (Google it.) We always had a very Irish priest and did lots to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but for the past few years we have a very Italian priest who decided we needed to celebrate St. Joseph's day as well. So I began my Internet search of all things St. Joseph. I decided that we should have a little family St. Joseph celebration to honor St. Joseph and my mother. And so I decided to try the pastries.
I was a little intimidated. I always thought cream puff pastry was some difficult mysterious thing. Not so! I can't believe how easy they were! I will try as best I can to describe the steps in detail. Feel free to e-mail or comment with any questions, and I will get back to you as soon as possible. There were many filling recipes, some just had whipped cream, some custard, and some cannoli cream. Some also had sour cherries mixed into the filling. Since cannoli are my all time favorite dessert, cannoli cream it was!
St. Joseph's Pastries with Cannoli filling.
Dough:
1 cup water
1 stick butter
1 cup flour - sifted
1 tablespoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 eggs at room temperature
Filling:
1 lb. ricotta cheese (if your cheese seems to have a lot of liquid, drain in a strainer over a bowl in the fridge overnight.)
3/4 to 1 cup confectioner's sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 teaspoon allspice (optional)
Maraschino cherries for garnish
I found it easier to have everything prepared before I began. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place a sheet of parchment paper on a large cookie sheet and lightly butter it. Break the eggs into a bowl. Drain cherries in a colander. I also got my pastry bag ready before I started. I used a #4a Wilton star tip. This is not necessary, you can just use a disposable pastry bag or even a zip-loc bag with the corner cut the tip off so you have an opening that is about 1/2 inch in diameter.
To make the dough: put water and butter into a sauce pan and turn the heat to high. Sift the sugar and salt with the flour. When the water boils and the butter is completely melted, add the flour all at once. Reduce heat to medium and beat mixture with a wooden spoon. In a minute or two, the dough will pull away from the sides of the pan and become smooth. Remove from the heat and spread the dough onto a board. Let the dough cool for about three minutes and return to pan. You are done with the heat and you could use a bowl, but why dirty another item? Add the eggs one at a time. Just tip the bowl, grab a yolk and some of the white with the wooden spoon and dump into the pot. This is not rocket science. Beat each egg into the dough mixture one at a time. This takes a little elbow grease but it's not impossible. Next time, I will try to use my mixer.
When all the eggs are thoroughly mixed into the dough, transfer the dough to a pastry bag. If it doesn't all fit, that's fine, do it in steps. Now squeeze a circle about three inches in diameter onto the parchment and fill it in working from the outside to the center, building it up as you work so there are two layers of pastry in the center. Continue making circles about two inches apart. Transfer to 400 degree oven. After 15 minutes, reduce the heat to 350 degrees and cook about 20 minutes more, or until they look golden brown. Like this:
Remove from oven and with a sharp knife, make a slit in the side of each cream puff to let out any steam. When they are just cool enough to handle, cut the top off one of them, if the inside is moist, cut the top off each one and put them back into the oven which is now turned off, but still warm for about ten minutes, to dry out the insides.
To make the filling, combine the drained ricotta with the other ingredients and beat well. I used my food processor to make it really smooth.
I waited until just before these were ready to serve to fill them. The filling will cause the cream puffs to become soggy. Use a pastry bag or zip-log bag to fill. Replace the top and add a dollop of filling to the top. Sprinkle powdered sugar over the pastries and then add a cherry to the top of each one. Be sure to drain the cherries well and perhaps give them a squeeze and pat dry with a paper towel. Mine were a little too wet and some of them slid off the top while I was driving them to my sister's. Enjoy!
As always, enjoy your pastries and it doesn't have to be St. Joseph's day to make them. Please leave any comments or questions in the comment section below this post. I can't wait to her how yours turned out!
Happy Cooking!
Carol. a.k.a. Nonnie
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