Glorious flavors usually found in a cannoli, come together for the ultimate dessert bar. They are super easy to make, but still decadent – with beautiful green pistachios.
With three delicious layers, these bars are so simple to make – and I can honestly say that this has become one of my favorite recipes. First up is the bottom. A chewy sugar cookie layer with almond extract, a moist middle cookie layer with ricotta, sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chunks and pistachios, and a rich dark chocolate ganache layer drowns the top. And don’t forget the fancy pistachios.
Pistachio and Ricotta Bars with Ganache
- Yield: 24 bars 1x
Description
Glorious flavors of a cannoli, come together for the ultimate dessert bar. They are super easy to make, but still decadent with beautiful green pistachios.
Ingredients
Units
Scale
Cannoli Bars
- 1 (18.25 oz.) pkg. white cake mix, divided or your favorite white cake recipe
- 1/4 cup melted butter
- 4 large eggs, divided
- 1 (16 oz.) container (2 cups) whole milk ricotta cheese
- 1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 1/2 tsp. pure almond extract
- 1 1/2 cup chopped dark or semi sweet chocolate
- 1 cup roasted pistachios, chopped
Chocolate Ganache
- 12 oz bag of dark or semi sweet chocolate chips
- 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
Instructions
- Start by preheating your oven to 350 F and lining a 9×13 baking dish with foil. Spray the foil with cooking spray or rub generously with butter.
- Take ½ a cup of the cake mix and set aside. You will be using this to mix into the second layer of the bars.
- In a bowl, mix the remaining cake mix, melted butter, and 1 egg with an electric mixer until a dough forms.
- Press the dough onto the bottom of the pan.
- In a large bowl, blend together the ricotta, sweetened condensed milke, and almond extract until fully combined.
- Mix in the ½ cup cake mix and 3 eggs until smooth. Fold in the chocolate chunks and ½ of the pistachios.
- Spread over the layer of dough.
- Bake for 45-50 minutes being careful to not over bake. Take out of the oven when the middle is barely set.
- Place in refrigerator to fully cool.
Chocolate Ganache
- In a medium bowl, place the chocolate chips and set aside.
- In a saucepan, heat the heavy cream over medium low until a low bowl just starts.
- Take off the heat and pour over chocolate chips.
- Carefully fold until the chocolate is melted and glossy.
- Pour over the cannoli bars and sprinkle with the rest of the pistachios and place in fridge overnight or for at least 4 hours.
- Category: Dessert, Baking
These look amazing, I can’t wait to try them out, I think they’ll be my weekend bake.
Nicole
FromWhereNicoleStands
Do you make the box of white cake mix first, or do you leave the cake mix dry????
First I couldn’t find 18.25 oz of cake mix. Also the ricotta comes in 15oz or 32 oz. in your description above the ingredients you mention sugar cookie with almond extract. Except the directions say put extract in the ricotta mixture. So with that said I’m in the process of the baking part. Serving tomorrow. And I’ll let you know how this turns out. Fingers crossed.
Delicious! I used 15oz ricotta (standard size) and it turned out just fine. I also just used whatever normal box of white cake mix- didn’t check the oz but it worked fine. My Ganache was a little on the soft side, but that may be due to using 1/2 cup of whole milk since I only had 1 cup of heavy cream.
These are INSANELY delicious. I used a little fiori di sicilia extract in place of the almond extract. Crazy good.
So happy to hear that!!
So decadent, but so delicious!