Kona Coffee Cannoli Cream Mochiko Waffles

This one is personal. Like Leslie Knope (If you know, you know), I have a deep and undying love of waffles. Over the years, I have tried every possible waffle recipe you can imagine, and today I am going to share one of my all-time favorites. I literally make waffles once a week, freeze a week’s supply, and pop them in the toaster oven every morning. More on that in a moment.

Being of half Italian ancestry means I grew up in a family where the kitchen was the center of motherly love, pouring out from dinners to Holidays to special treats just because. The Italian dishes that flowed from my mom’s side of the family are still with me today, but nothing made my heart so excited as homemade cannoli at the end of the meal. Light, crunchy, and creamy, rich in flavor and texture, absolute perfection!

Fast forward to me in my mid-40s, wanting to share the culinary traditions of my family with my own kids, I dug in to the old recipes, called mom and aunties, practiced risotto every Sunday for 2 years, got my pasta maker humming, dove into sauces and re-learned all of the soups, meats and veggie dishes that were so ingrained in my upbringing. Then I remembered the cannoli.

It’s not that I really ever forgot, it’s just that I was the dinner guy and my wife did the desserts. (She is a professional baker) So when I looked into it, it turned out it was a lot of work. I bought the roller molds on Amazon, got recipe books, tested oil temperatures, the thickness of the dough, and, of course, many fun variations on fillings.

If I am honest, what I found was that making perfect cannoli was a pain in the neck, took a long time to master, had a high failure rate, and threatened to diminish my deep love for the Italian confection.

Then fate smiled upon me. After toasting my morning waffle and looking for some yogurt to put on top, I notice a small container of leftover cannoli filling. I wonder if…? Yes, you got it, crunchy mochiko waffles topped with cannoli filling were literally the answer to my prayers.

Now, due to the sugar and ricotta cheese, and my desire not to weigh a thousand pounds, this would become a special dessert rather than breakfast, but that morning, a confluence of mystical wonder came together, and with a perfect cup of Kona coffee and a cannoli waffle, I had become one with the universe.

All right…I’m a little melodramatic, I know, but it was really, really good, and I’m gonna share, I promise. There is just one more piece of the story you need to know.

Since taking over this blog during the pandemic, I have spent a lot of time trying to incorporate coffee into my recipes. From spice rubs, sauces, coffee syrups, specialty BBQ sauces, etc, coffee is always somewhere on my mind. I played with espresso brownies, tiramisu, coffee caramel tres leches, and realized that when used in a recipe, espresso is always better than drip.

Even if you are doing a thicker extraction, the ratio in espresso and the depth of flavor always show up better on the other side of the recipe, so if you don’t have the ability to make espresso, I’ll give you a couple of alternatives below.

The Waffles

Many years ago, I went through a gluten-free phase (thank goodness that’s over), but during that time, I came across a recipe for waffles made from glutinous rice flour, called mochiko. I was an immediate fan, and as I got back into gluten, I began to add a little regular flour to achieve a certain crunchiness I was after. That recipe follows.

You will need a waffle maker.

In bowl one:
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup of whole milk
1/3 cup of sugar
2 tablespoons of melted butter

In bowl two:
2 cups of mochiko (glutinous rice flour)
½ cup of all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon of salt
1.5 tablespoons of baking soda

1. Mix all ingredients in bowl one with a whisk
2. Sift together all ingredients in bowl two
3. Add bowl two to bowl one and mix until creamy
4. Pour one measuring cup at a time into the waffle maker

Note: If you eat this right away, not a problem, but making them in advance and crisping them up in the toaster is easy.

Variations:
(add powder cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove for chai spice waffles -to the dry bowl)
(add apple juice to loosen waffle batter – to the wet bowl)
(Add carbonated water to the waffle batter to add airiness – to the wet bowl)

The Topping

Perfect cannoli filling is simple: strained whole milk ricotta cheese and powdered sugar. There are many variations on this with mascarpone, adding heavy cream to lighten the filling, adding spices and candied fruits, and vanilla. Feel free to explore all of that, but today you want:

15oz of Whole Milk Ricotta (strained well)
1 cup of powdered sugar.

Note: To strain the ricotta, put it on a cheese cloth in a strainer over a bowl in the fridge overnight.

To get the espresso worked into the cream, I will take 2 tablespoons of a Kona dark roast espresso and mix it directly into the ricotta. Mix it well and then strain as described above. Moisture out, coffee flavor in.

If you don’t have an espresso maker, you can use a Bialetti Moka Pot or swing by your local café and order a shot of espresso and bring it home. It is usable for a couple of days stored in the fridge.

After your ricotta is strained, add the powdered sugar and cheese to a bowl and whisk until creamy.

Putting it Together

Fresh or toasted, make sure to butter your waffles. Warm and crispy is the key. Then add a generous amount of cannoli cream for the topping. Serve this with a Greenwell Farms 100% Kona Medium Roast.

Variations:
1. Use a vegetable peeler to shave chocolate onto the cream
2. Top with fresh berries (Strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry mix)
3. Sprinkle with a dot of cinnamon
4. Sprinkle with hazelnuts or toasted almond slices.
5. Drizzle with coffee syrup.
6. Shave some lemon zest over the cream.

If this isn’t one of the most delicious creations you have ever come across, then I will have to question my sanity and every decision I have ever made. I am confident, though, that you may never have had a waffle as good as this. And it is soooo easy.

So, with that, I leave you with some bonus insights.

Waffle descends from a Dutch word “wafel” meaning honeycomb, and is related to the word wafer. The Dutch brought it to the colonies in the 1700s, and the waffle has evolved in various manifestations as technology has changed.

The original name for the Eggo waffle was “froffle,” meaning frozen waffle, but due to a distinct and delicious egg flavor, it was changed to Eggo. The L’eggo my Eggo campaign, started in 1972 by advertising legend Leo Burnett (think: Tony the Tiger, the Marlboro Man, and the Pillsbury Doughboy), is considered one of the most successful food slogans of all time.

Please make this recipe and let me know what you think!