Pink Cherry Pizzelle with Fluffy Almond Creme Filling
Valentine’s Day is fast approaching! I do not generally have a lot of love for this holiday, not because of anything personally bad, I have just always found it rather cheesy and gaudy. The decorations and throw-away gifts seem wasteful to me. However, I have been on a deep dive into romantic patisserie foods and aesthetics for the last 8 or more weeks, and I have been loving the opportunity to play around with some adorably cottagecore sweets for the blog!
Today we are kicking off a romantic cottage February with these adorable filled pink pizzelle. Flavored with cherry and almond, they are perfectly light and creamy with a crispy delicious cookie. And they are pink! How precious!
how to make pizzelle:
Pizzelle are a traditional Italian dessert. They are a waffle cookie made in a waffle iron, and they can be either crispy or chewy. The pizzelle in this recipe are more on the crispy side, though they are still quite thick! I recently learned this type of cookie has many similar variations across cultures, namely the Norwegian Krumkake, but it is thought to have originated with the Ancient Romans.
We make our pizzelle at home with this Cucina Pro Pizzelle Baker. It is incredibly easy to use and makes pizzelle within minutes!
the method:
Making pizzelle that was shaped like cannoli was a bit of a learning curve for us! We learned that to hold the shape of the cannoli and retain the light pink color, the cookie needed to be slightly undercooked. With our pizzelle iron, this takes about 50 seconds exactly. It may be longer or shorter depending on which tool that you use.
We also learned that we needed to wrap the pizzelle around the cannoli mold similarly to rolling a jelly roll cake. The cookie need to be hot and wrapped in a towel. The towel help to hold the shape of the cookie while it cooled, and it also made it easier to roll with our fingers rather than burning them in the process. We let the cookies cool wrapped around the cannoli mold and in the towel before removing the towel and gently sliding the mold out from inside the cookie.
You will want to be extra careful with these cookies, as they crack and break easily. This is not an incredibly easy dessert to work with, so it may take a few tries before you figure out the method yourself!
The resulting dessert is light and sweetly flavored with almond. We used cherry syrup to color the pizzelle rather than food coloring. The color turned out so sweet! We wanted a pretty blush pink color. My photo editing actually made them a bit darker than they are in real life.
I love the look of the pizzelle iron design and the scalloped edges. It is a perfect dessert for a coffee or tea break in the afternoon. I would pair these alongside a set of tea sandwiches with cucumber and cheese!
xoxo Kayla
Pink Cherry Pizzelles with Fluffy Almond Creme
Ingredients
- 3 large eggs
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 2 tbsp cherry syrup
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 cup melted salted butter
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
- 2 cups whipped cream
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 2 tbsp powdered sugar, sifted
- 2 ounces white chocolate, melted
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs until light and bubbly, about 3-5 minutes. Whisk in the sugar, almond extract, and cherry syrup for another 1-2 minutes.
- Stir in the flour and baking powder until the flour is no longer visible and there are minimal lumps in the batter. Whisk in the melted butter and set the batter aside.
- Heat a pizzelle iron. Spray the iron with cooking spray. Place 2 tbsp of pizzelle batter in the middle of the design and press the pizzelles for about 50-60 seconds. They should be a bit undercooked to retain their pink color and be more easily shaped.
- Immediately wrap the hot pizzelle cookie around a cannoli tube. We found it was easiest to also wrap a towel around the pizzelle to hold it in place. Let the pizzelle cool completely before removing the towel and pulling out the cannoli tube.
- Let the pizzelle finish cooling and harden before filling.
- In a medium bowl, cream the cream cheese until smooth with a wooden spoon or handheld electric mixer. Whip it together with the sweetened condensed milk for about 2-3 minutes.
- Fold in the whipped cream, almond extract, and powdered sugar. Spoon the cream filling into a piping bag fitted with a large open star tip. Chill the filling for about 30 minutes before piping.
- Meanwhile, dip the open ends of the pizzelle cookies into the melted white chocolate. Place them on a piece of wax or parchment paper while the chocolate hardens.
- Pipe the cream filling into the pizzelle cookies. This is easily done by filling in both sides rather than only piping in the cream from one side.
- Serve the cookies chilled or at room temperature, dusted with powdered sugar.
