When: June 16
National Cannoli Day on June 16th celebrates the Sicilian fried pastry shell filled with sweetened ricotta that has become one of Italian-American cuisine's most iconic desserts. The cannoli's history is wound into Sicilian carnival culture, Arab culinary influence, and a rivalry between bakeries that spans continents.
The cannoli's filling was originally ricotta — but in Sicily today, most cannoli are filled with sweetened sheep's milk ricotta that is completely different from the cow's milk ricotta sold in American supermarkets, and using the wrong ricotta is considered a serious crime.
Cannoli originated in Palermo, Sicily, where their origins are traced to the Arab occupation of the island in the 9th–11th centuries CE. Arab culinary influence brought sugar, almonds, ricotta, and the technique of frying pastry dough to Sicily — all foundational elements of the modern cannoli. The earliest cannoli were made for the Carnevale festival, and the association between cannoli and celebration persists. The plural "cannoli" is the standard form in Italian; "cannolo" is the singular — a distinction most Americans ignore comfortably. The traditional Sicilian cannolo uses sheep's milk ricotta (ricotta di pecora), which has a different flavor profile from cow's milk ricotta — richer, slightly tangier, and with a more complex mineral quality. The ricotta is sweetened with sugar and sometimes flavored with vanilla, lemon zest, or cinnamon, then studded with chocolate chips or candied citrus peel. The shell must be fried to order and filled at the last moment — a pre-filled cannolo...