Cannoli, one of Sicily’s best-known desserts, are deep-fried cylindrical pastry shells filled with sweetened whipped ricotta mixed with candied citron and grated chocolate. The size and fillings vary in different parts of Sicily.

Most notably, there are the ones with a creamy dark chocolate ricotta filling created by the pastry chefs of Messina. Cannoli are decorated in many ways: with chopped pistachios, candied orange peel, candied cherries, or chocolate. In Italian, the word cannoli is plural and cannolo singular, but in English they are almost invariably referred to as cannoli.