The Cake Boss Makes Enough Cannoli To Feed The Entire Neighborbood And Maybe Even Most Of His Family

Buddy is busy designing a cake for dragon boat racers Titia and Kevin. Each dragon looking boat has 20 paddlers. Buddy says he’s going to do his best to respect their Chinese cultcha. He shows a kinda scary looking 3-D model of two dragons wrapped around a cake. They look like they could strike out any second like pythons.

He says the cake is going to be “autentic, autentic, autenic”. They’re using Rice Krispie treats to make the dragon heads. Well! How could it be any MORE authentic than that!!!

Those artist girls are really amazing. They could probably even make a perfect replica of David out of Rice Krispie treats. And judging by their enthusiasm for that male stripper cake, they would have a heyday with HIS accoutrements.

Buddy says he needs 30 pounds of cannoli dough. He’s doing a cannoli event, where they sell hundreds of them for 25 cents. WHEN?!!

He’s making one giant cannoli for display and using the same recipe that Buddy’s father brought over from Sicily. Aww. For the dough, he starts with sugar and shortening. Then he adds vinegar “to make the shell flaky and tender”. Next flour, cinnamon and vanilla get mixed in.

Joey is told to send up the cakes for the dragon cake. He only brings in one big round. Buddy wants to know where the other cakes are. He yells at Sal. Frankie yells at Sal. The whole place is one big Eye-Talian yelling factory. Buddy says, “So are YOU the liar or are YOU the liar?” I’d put my money on Frankie screwing up. Sweet guy, but a bit of a dope. Buddy yells at them to make more cakes NOW!

Buddy takes out the 30 pounds of cannoli dough. That’s big enough to be an entire kid…or two. He rolls out a big piece (beautifully) and wraps it around a huge piece of pipe to make the giant cannoli. It’s 26 inches long and 6 inches wide…in other words, it really IS the size of a small child. He deep fries it. WOW, that looks good. They remove the pipe carefully.

Joey brings up the newky made chaw-co-lot cake for the dragon cake. Buddy fills it with lots of chaw-co-lot fudge. Yum. He dirty ices it and puts it in the fridge.

Buddy’s sister, Grace, reminds Buddy that his 8 year anniversary is coming up. Grace says he needs to plan something unique. He decides to recreate the top of their wedding cake.

Can you imagine being married to a baker? To an Italian stallion one at that? Buddy tells us he’s making a special checkerboard cake for Lisa, which looks really nifty. He makes rounds of chaw-co-lot and vanilla cakes. Then he cuts them out...in rings. He places a chaw-co-lot ring inside a vanilla ring and then a vanilla ring inside that. He ends up with alternating rings of different cakes. He sandwiches them together and when it’s cut, it looks like a checkerboard. So cool.

He uses chaw-co-lot ganache, chaw-co-lot mousse and fresh raspberries in between the layers. Hmm-mmm. He dirty ices it and covers it in white fondant and puts tons of his gorgeous hand-made flowers on. Wowee.

Buddy tells Danny to make him 150 pounds of cannoli cream for the cannoli festival. He starts with a kind of ricotta that has a very smooth texture.

Hold it one sec. He calls it “inbastada”(?) or embastada, which is super smooth ricotta. I've never heard of that and I can't find anything about it anywhere! Buddy, could you tawk slower, I’m trying to learn here?!!

I found ricotta infornata or ricotta al forno, which is cooked in the oven until it gets a charred brown crust; and I found ricotta affumicata, which is smoked ricotta with a GREY crust; AND I found ricotta scanta which is soured ricotta. But no inbastada or however you spell or say it.

Buddy says they’re also using fresh ricotta and sugar, vanilla, diced melon(!), cinnamon oil(?) and chocolate chips in the filling. I want a cannoli this minute.

NOW, he’s making SIXTY pounds of dough for the cannoli shells. He needs more? They roll it out on a “sheeter”, and then roll the gorgeous, smooth dough back up on a rolling pin. Then they lay it out on a really long cutting board. I’ve never seen one that long. They lay layers on top of layers. Buddy cuts out circles of dough. Out of each cut, he gets 3 or 4 or 5 cannoli, depending on how many layers he’s cutting through.

They wrap the discs around hundreds of wooden sticks and they get lowered into a deep fryer. Gosh! This is all done by hand. It really is amazing what an artist…and artisan he is.

Buddy says the secret is to fry them in LARD. They are sooo crisp. Oh my, there’s more yelling.

Danny leaves 150 pounds of cannoli cream out in the oven room, where it’s 90 degrees. Buddy goes WILD! Danny says Buddy called him upstairs and he hadn’t finished what he was doing. Buddy screams some more.

The girls are setting up the tables outside to get ready for the huge cannoli event. Buddy tastes the cream and it’s definitely sour. So Sal and Buddy make a whole new batch lickety split. They stuff the giant cannoli shell with over 100 filled cannoli, which makes a magnificent centerpiece. Buddy brings it out to lots of oohs and ahs.

He fills the rest of the shells fresh. Oh my! Those look unbelievable. Buddy is “pumping them out like a machine”. He says they’ve sold over 1000 cannoli.

Tony and Daniela are finishing the dragon heads with red and white modeling chaw-co-lot. He calls them artists, which they are. The cake gets finished with luster dust and edible beads.

But wait, golly gee, there’s another problem. The dragon heads are much larger than he said to make them. There’s no room for them on the cake as originally designed. What will happen?

He and Mauro play around with the design. They put one head on top and the other one on a lower level. They make the rest of the body with Rice Krispie treats in the shape of a snake. He covers that with this awesome textured red modeling chaw-co-lot. They finish the cake with red wavy patterns and Buddy air brushes it to add gold highlights. It looks amazing.

The girls think it looks better than the original design. It really is quite spectacular. The dragon racers are thrilled.

Buddy takes Lisa to Le Cirque for their anniversary. He’s sweet and she says she understands that he has to work so hard.

He says he has a little something for her. She closes her eyes. The wedding cake replica is set in front of her. She acts happy, even though I think “I have a little something for you” automatically means a little blue box something, but Lisa says the right stuff.

“You hand-made these (flowers) all by yourself,” she coos. “I did’t let nobody help me with it,” he tells her. Buddy tells US she was floored. I would describe it more as reasonably grateful. They feed each other cake. Sweet, although I’m still waiting for the little blue box.