Remember those crispy ginger snaps we just blogged about? We did that on purpose to set it up for THIS post. Because Valentine’s Day is coming up and we wanted to create an amazing dessert to celebrate. Though to be honest, we don’t actually celebrate Valentine’s Day because it’s also our son’s birthday and he takes precedence. <3
We took that same ginger snap recipe and baked them into cups in mini muffin pans. You do that by rolling them into balls and then pressing them into the muffin cups so they are a little over the edge. We also had to freeze them for about 20 minutes so they wouldn’t collapse into the cups while they baked and become muffins. We baked them for about 12 minutes just like the cookies. Even so, I still had to press them back into cups while they were warm because they rose so much. I did this with the rounded end of a handle because they were too hot to do by hand. A pestle would work, too. You end up with this:

Next, I made lemon curd. I am famous for not following recipes. This time, however, I have no Kate-invented recipe to offer you. Because I use Alton Brown’s Lemon Curd because it is AMAZING. Like, out of this world so lemony and the perfect texture. I follow the recipe exactly. The only advice I can give is to keep the temp at medium to medium-high for the whole 8 minutes. You run the risk of it not setting well if you turn the heat down and then you’ll be whisking forever. Also make sure you don’t run out of water in the pan.
Finally, cannoli cream. Cannoli is that amazing Italian dessert that is sort of like puff pastry made into hollow tubes and then filled with ricotta that’s been mixed with cream, cinnamon and spices, sometimes (often?) chocolate chips, and various other ingredients – but mostly ricotta.
However, mine is really just whipped cream with some ricotta and cinnamon thrown in. That’s the recipe we are offering in this post. Just whipped cream was too light and fluffy and didn’t add enough contrast to the lemon curd. Adding ricotta to the whipping cream adds a great flavor and substance.
Now that all the components have been made (you made them, right?) it’s easy to put it all together, even though it can feel like a marathon completing the steps to get to this point. Once the lemon curd and cannoli cream are made and chilled and the ginger snap cups are baked and cooled, just fill the cups with lemon curd and pipe the cream on top. Don’t just drop the cream – remember how thick it is. It will look terrible if you just shake it off a spoon. I simply put some in a plastic sandwich bag, cut off a corner, and squeeze it in circles around the top which, as you can see, is really pretty.
