Italian Ricotta and Dark Chocolate Cream | Crema di Ricotta e Cioccolato
Updated: Sep 14
Crema di ricotta e cioccolato is the filling that half of Sicilian pastry stands on. It goes into cannoli, between the sponge of a cassata, under the pastry lid of a crostata and into the middle of a sfoglio, and it is made from four things: ricotta, sugar, dark chocolate and a little citrus. There is no egg, no gelatin, no mascarpone and no cooking.
Because the list is that short, technique is the whole recipe. The ricotta is drained until it stops giving up whey, rested with the sugar so the crystals dissolve into the cheese rather than being beaten into it, and pushed through a sieve instead of whipped. The chocolate is chopped by hand and folded in cold, never melted. Get those four decisions right and the cream is dense, glossy and pipeable without a single stabiliser.
What you should not do is push it toward mousse. This is ricotta with chocolate in it, not chocolate cream with ricotta in it, and the ricotta has to stay legible in flavour and in texture.
Yield: about 3 cups (750 ml), roughly 8 servings or enough for 20 cannoli. Prep: 25 minutes. Draining: 8 to 24 hours. Resting with sugar: 2 to 4 hours. Difficulty: easy in execution, demanding in ingredient quality. Course: dessert component. Region: Sicily.
The Story
Sicilian pastry runs on sheep's milk ricotta, and it runs on it seasonally. The ewes of the Iblei plateau and the Madonie lamb in late autumn, which is why the traditional ricotta season on the island runs from October to roughly the end of spring, and why the old rule in Palermo and Catania was that cannoli belong to the cold months. The ricotta di pecora of those months is dense, faintly sweet and distinctly savoury, quite different from the wet cow's milk product sold in tubs elsewhere, and the whole construction of this cream assumes it.
Chocolate came to the island through Spanish rule. Cacao arrived in Sicily in the seventeenth century by way of the Spanish court, and Modica in the province of Ragusa kept the cold worked Mesoamerican method it learned then, grinding cacao with sugar at a temperature low enough that the sugar never dissolves, which is why Modica chocolate still has that grainy crunch. Sicilian pastry has therefore always treated chocolate as something granular to fold in rather than a smooth mass to melt, and that habit is exactly what this cream preserves. The orange zest is the third leg: citrus from the Conca d'Oro around Palermo was the cheapest perfume a pastry cook had.
Ingredients
For the ricotta base
Fresh sheep's milk ricotta, 2 lb (900 g) weighed before draining
Granulated sugar, 1 cup (200 g)
Fine sea salt, 1 small pinch
For the chocolate and aromatics
Dark chocolate, 65 to 70 percent cacao, 5 oz (140 g)
Finely grated orange zest, from 1 untreated orange
Vanilla extract, 1 tsp (5 ml)
Ground cinnamon, 1 small pinch, optional
For finishing
Shelled pistachios, toasted and chopped, 1/4 cup (30 g)
Candied orange peel, finely diced, 2 tbsp (25 g)
Dark chocolate, shaved, 1 tbsp
Preparation
Choosing and draining the ricotta
Choose ricotta that smells clean and milky and looks moist but not sitting in liquid. Set it in a fine mesh strainer over a deep bowl, cover it and refrigerate for at least 8 hours, up to 24 for a very wet one. Let gravity pull the whey out on its own: squeezing or weighting the curd compacts it and gives a pasty cream. Discard the whey. This step decides the final texture more than anything else you do.
Resting the ricotta with the sugar
Transfer the drained ricotta to a bowl, add all the granulated sugar and the pinch of salt, and fold until evenly mixed. Cover and refrigerate 2 to 4 hours. In that time the sugar dissolves into the moisture already held in the cheese, which produces a smooth sweetness with no mechanical work. Beating sugar into cold ricotta instead gives a gritty cream that stays gritty. If liquid has pooled after the rest, pour it off.
Passing the ricotta through a sieve
Set a fine mesh sieve over a clean bowl and push the sweetened ricotta through it with a flexible spatula, working in small batches so you are never fighting the volume. Pass it a second time for a cream you intend to pipe. This is the traditional refinement and it is not whipping: it breaks the curd granules without folding in air. A food processor does the opposite, adding air and heat and leaving the cream slack within an hour.
Chopping the chocolate by hand
Chop the dark chocolate on a dry board with a heavy knife into small irregular pieces, roughly the size of coarse sea salt and smaller. Do not pulverise it and do not use chips, which are formulated to hold their shape and taste waxy in a cold dairy cream. You want a mix of sizes: the finest fragments melt on the palate and read as cacao flavour, the larger ones stay distinct and give the cream its texture. Keep it cool so it does not smear.
Folding in the aromatics and the chocolate
Grate the orange zest directly over the bowl so the oils fall into the cream, taking only the coloured outer layer and none of the white pith beneath it. Add the vanilla, and the cinnamon if you are using it, and fold gently. Then add the chopped chocolate and fold just until evenly distributed, ten or twelve strokes at most. Every extra stroke slackens the ricotta and smears the chocolate, greying the cream.
Resting and correcting the finished cream
Cover the cream with film touching the surface and refrigerate at least 1 hour before use, which lets the orange oils spread and the ricotta firm. Then taste it cold, because chilled cream reads less sweet than the same cream warm. Correct only with sifted powdered sugar, a spoonful at a time, never granulated, which will not dissolve now. If it seems loose, another 2 hours in the cold usually fixes it.
Plating
Served on its own, treat it as a quenelle rather than a scoop. Dip two dessertspoons in hot water, dry them, and pass the cream between them two or three times until it sits as a smooth three sided oval, then lay it slightly off centre in a shallow bowl or on a small dark plate, which shows the flecks of chocolate better than white porcelain does.
Build around it in threes: a thin crisp almond biscuit leaning against the quenelle, chopped toasted pistachio on one side, a few dice of candied orange peel on the other, a light shaving of dark chocolate over the top. Fresh orange segments cut free of all membrane are the one fruit that belongs here. Nothing needs a sauce.
For cannoli, pipe from a bag with a plain 1/2 inch (12 mm) tip, filling from both ends so the shell is solid through the middle, within minutes of service. Finish one end with chopped pistachio and the other with candied orange. A shell filled half an hour early is already soft at the centre.
Professional Technique
The defining technique here is the sieve, used in place of a whisk. Ricotta is not an emulsion, it is a loose network of coagulated whey proteins, and the graininess people dislike comes from intact curd granules rather than from undissolved sugar. Forcing the cheese through a fine mesh shears those granules apart mechanically and gives a glossy, dense body. A whisk or a processor beats instead, which adds air, warms the fat and breaks the network past the point where it holds shape. Sieved ricotta pipes; whipped ricotta weeps.
The second is macerating the ricotta with sugar before refining it. Sucrose is hygroscopic, so given a few hours in contact with cold cheese it draws moisture out of the curd and dissolves in it, producing a saturated sweet phase distributed evenly through the cream. Do the same work with a spatula in two minutes and the crystals are still crystals, which is why so many home versions taste sandy even when the ricotta itself is sieved smooth.
The third is the decision never to melt the chocolate. Melted chocolate carries cocoa butter that recrystallises at refrigerator temperature and sets throughout the cream, turning a soft filling into something closer to ganache and dulling the ricotta behind a uniform layer of cacao fat. Chopped chocolate folded in cold keeps its own melting point and texture, so each spoonful gives intermittent bursts of bitterness against a plain dairy background. That contrast is the point of the preparation, and the reason cannoli and cassata are built this way.
Texture and Moisture Control
Correctly made, the cream is dense, smooth, fresh tasting and stable enough to hold a piped shape without gelatin, with chocolate visible throughout. Every fault it can develop is a moisture fault. Weeping means the ricotta was not drained long enough. Slackness means it was worked too hard or too warm. Sandiness means the sugar never dissolved. Pastiness, the least common, means the curd was squeezed rather than drained.
Temperature control is simple but strict. Everything stays cold: the ricotta, the bowl, the chocolate and your hands. Ricotta fat softens noticeably above 60°F (16°C), and a cream that has warmed on the bench does not recover its body simply by going back into the refrigerator. In a hot kitchen, sieve over a bowl set on ice and work in two batches.
Judge the finished consistency by drawing a spatula through it: the furrow should hold its edges for a few seconds and then relax slowly, not close instantly and not crack. If it closes at once the cream needs more time in the cold, or more draining. If it cracks the cheese was overworked, and the only reliable fix is folding in 2 tbsp (30 g) of fresh sieved ricotta.
Professional Mise en Place
The only long lead item is the ricotta, so plan backwards from it: draining the night before, sugar rest in the morning, sieving and folding in the afternoon, service the next day.
Equipment and tools
Fine mesh strainer for draining and a second fine mesh sieve for refining
Deep bowl to catch the whey, so the ricotta never sits in it
Flexible silicone spatula, the single most important tool here
Heavy chef's knife and a dry board for chopping the chocolate
Piping bag with a plain 1/2 inch (12 mm) tip if the cream is for cannoli
Prepared ahead
Ricotta drained, 8 to 24 hours ahead, covered and refrigerated
Ricotta rested with the sugar, 2 to 4 hours ahead
Chocolate chopped and held cool, up to 1 day ahead
Pistachios toasted and chopped, candied orange diced, up to 3 days ahead
Finished cream made up to 1 day before service and kept sealed and cold
Service setup
Cream in a covered container in the coldest part of the refrigerator until the moment of use
Piping bag filled and chilled, never left standing in a warm kitchen
Cannoli shells kept dry and separate, filled only to order
Two dessertspoons and a jug of hot water at the pass for quenelles
Garnishes in small bowls within reach so nothing is chopped during service
Chef Tips
Buy the ricotta and the chocolate on the same principle: this recipe has nowhere to hide either one. Sheep's milk ricotta from a cheesemaker is worth a detour, and if only cow's milk is available take a whole milk one and add 4 hours of draining. Never low fat ricotta, which has neither the body nor the flavour to carry chocolate.
Taste the ricotta before you sweeten it. A very fresh sheep's milk ricotta is already faintly sweet and 1 cup (200 g) of sugar is plenty; a blander industrial one may take a little more. Decide at the start, because sugar added after sieving never integrates as well.
Save a spoonful of the chopped chocolate and fold it in right at the end, after the cream has rested. Those pieces stay sharp edged and dark against a cream that has settled in the cold, and the difference shows on the plate.
If you want the cream slightly firmer for piping without changing its character, drain the ricotta a few hours longer rather than adding anything. Cornstarch, gelatin and mascarpone all work and all of them turn it into a different preparation.
Common Mistakes
Skipping or shortening the draining. The cream looks correct when you make it and releases a pool of whey overnight, which soaks whatever it is filling. Eight hours is the minimum and a wet ricotta needs twenty four.
Whipping the ricotta instead of sieving it. Beating adds air and warms the fat, so the cream loosens within the hour and will not hold a piped shape. Sieve it twice and keep the whisk and the processor away.
Melting the chocolate. The cocoa butter sets solid in the cold, the texture goes from filling to ganache, and the ricotta disappears behind a flat layer of cacao. Chop it cold, by hand, and fold it in last.
Grating the orange too deep. Pith taken with the zest puts a bitterness into the cream that develops over hours and cannot be corrected. Use a fine rasp, turn the fruit constantly and stop at the colour.
Overmixing after the chocolate goes in. Ten or twelve folds are enough. Beyond that the fragments smear and the cream turns a dull grey brown, losing the contrast that makes it worth eating.
Filling cannoli in advance. Moisture migrates into the shell immediately and the crispness is gone within half an hour. Keep filling and shells apart and pipe to order.
Wine Pairing
Brachetto d'Acqui DOCG: Sweet, lightly sparkling and intensely perfumed with rose and red berry, it is one of the few wines that meets dark chocolate without turning metallic, because its sugar sits above the cacao bitterness. The bubble also scrubs the ricotta fat off the palate between spoonfuls.
Recioto della Valpolicella DOCG: Dried Corvina grapes give a sweet red with cherry, dried fig and enough body to stand up to 70 percent cacao. Its tannin is soft and ripe rather than drying, which matters here: a firm tannin against fresh ricotta tastes chalky. Serve it at about 61°F (16°C).
Moscato di Scanzo DOCG: A rare sweet red from Bergamo, air dried and aromatic, with rose, dried plum and a clear spice note that picks up the cinnamon and the orange zest in the cream. Its aromatic intensity matches the chocolate without adding weight, and small glasses are the right measure.
Montefalco Sagrantino Passito DOCG: The most structured option, made from the most tannic grape in Italy and dried before fermentation. Use it when the cream is built on a high percentage chocolate, since its blackberry and dark cocoa character runs parallel to the cacao while the residual sugar keeps the tannin from clashing with the dairy.
Vin Santo del Chianti Classico DOC: The choice if you want contrast rather than echo. Years in sealed caratelli give oxidative notes of walnut, dried apricot and caramel that sit completely apart from the chocolate, and its high acidity cuts the ricotta cleanly. Particularly good when candied orange is on the plate.
Storage & Reheating
Keep the cream in an airtight container in the coldest part of the refrigerator, at 37 to 39°F (3 to 4°C), with film pressed onto the surface so it neither dries nor picks up the smell of anything else. Ricotta takes on refrigerator odours faster than almost any other dairy product. Use it within 2 days. It is best on the day after it is made, once the orange has spread through it, and tired by day three.
If a little whey separates in storage, pour it off and give the cream three or four gentle folds rather than stirring it back in. Anything already piped into cannoli or spread in a cassata should be eaten the same day.
Do not freeze it. Ice crystals rupture the curd structure and the thawed cream separates into grainy solids and free liquid, and no amount of folding brings it back. There is no reheating step: this preparation is never warmed, and even letting it come to room temperature costs it the body that draining and sieving were meant to build.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 8 servings of about 1/3 cup (95 g) each, garnishes included:
Calories: 430 kcal
Total Fat: 24 g
Saturated Fat: 14 g
Trans Fat: 0.2 g
Unsaturated Fat: 9 g
Cholesterol: 60 mg
Sodium: 160 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 42 g
Fiber: 2 g
Total Sugars: 38 g
Added Sugars: 29 g
Protein: 13 g
Lactose: 5 g
Principal micronutrients: calcium, phosphorus, iron from the cacao, magnesium, riboflavin, vitamin A
These figures are estimates and move with the ricotta. Sheep's milk is richer than cow's milk and pushes fat and calories higher, while cutting the sugar to 3/4 cup (150 g), which a very fresh ricotta takes comfortably, removes about 25 g of sugar from the batch.
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