Bensonhurst native Giuseppe Falanga took home top honors in the Cannoli Eating Contest at the Santa Rosalia Feast the contest took place outside Villabate Alba Bakery which provided the dessert that’s made of fried dough and filled with ricotta cheese and sugar Falanga won by eating seven standard sized cannoli in three minutes the portion was changed to mini cannoli and he won by eating 20 in three minutes I think most people had me as the underdog and weren’t sure if I could win so it was great to be able to take the title,” Falanga said I knew I needed to go in and defend the title so it felt pretty awesome winning two years in a row.” This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. my cell phone would ring several times: "The agnelli," she would say "What's going on with the agnelli?" as if once I gingerly picked them up in pastry boxes from the 110-year-old store to be shared around the Pasqua dinner table Several annual trips ferrying agnelli up I-80 followed including one holiday during which my father left several extra lambs in the trunk of a rental car when we returned it someone out there could still be enjoying them—made by hand from huge mounds of almond paste or frutta martorana (which start to pop up in pasticcerrias in October) if you get your agnelli from a true craftsman they aren't even sold at every Italian bakery that's still around Photo: Nikki KrecickiWe left Villabate Alba laden with cakes, cannolis, and even bakery gear—Manny popped out of the back with blue Villabate sweatshirts and T-shirts. When I told the Alaimos I needed a dozen mini and one large agnelli to go, to take 3,000 miles with me as my "personal item" on the plane home for Easter, on pain of death, they only said, "That's a Sicilian mother for you," and packed them up in extra tissue paper. By Marguerite Preston Villabate Alba fresh cannoli are filled with sheep's milk ricotta from Palermo The tall cakes are garlanded with candied fruit is a long shelf of sweets rarely seen outside of Sicily: the brightly painted marzipan fruits and vegetables known as frutta martorana dabs of green on stems—these are the marks of real hand-painted work.In Sicily it's difficult to find a bakery that doesn't sell frutta martorana which were supposedly invented some time in the 12th century by the nuns of La Martorana the nuns originally decided to sculpt fruits from marzipan and hang them from their empty trees to impress the visiting archbishop so they kept making the confections and started selling them to parishioners Giacomo Mauro has over 50 years of experience shaping and painting the sweets.Local pastry shops eventually picked up the art Now frutta martorana sculptors use molds made from wood or plaster instead of sculpting everything by hand and their vibrant colors come from modern powdered food coloring realistic shine from a finishing lacquer of gum arabic or benzoin (an edible resin) Mauro then lets the marzipan dry out overnight so it loses its Play-Doh texture and becomes firm enough to hold its shape when handled. He paints like a watercolorist, picking up powdered pigments with his ragged brush (or sometimes a finger) and swirling them into a dish of clear, alcohol-based imitation vanilla diluted with a little water. By the time he mixes the next color and returns to the beginning, the green paint has dried. He adds a coat of orange to the mandarins, streaks of red to apples, and with a smooth swoop draws the curve where the watermelon flesh meets white rind. “That’s one of the hardest things to do,” Manny points out. “I could do this with my eyes closed,” Mauro says as he grins. Once coated, the fruits keep forever—Manny says some customers have had theirs as decoration for 20 years—but this kind of beauty is meant to be eaten. Marguerite is a baker turned writer living in Brooklyn, NY. She has written for Bon Appetit, the Village Voice, the Sweethome, and more, and is the former editor of Eater New York, where she still writes a column about the making of great pastries. Giacomo Mauro has over 50 years of experience shaping and painting the sweets.ADVERTISEMENTADADLocal pastry shops eventually picked up the art One of Mauro's decades-old plaster molds.At their best, the palm-sized sculpted sweets are remarkably realistic: apples with blotches, peaches with a fine coat of fuzz, strawberries with seed dimples, mandarins demurely part-peeled to reveal the pithy fruit, or the occasional Sicilian spleen sandwich for kicks This kind of detail can only be achieved by painstakingly hand-painting each piece with multiple layers of color And because each layer must dry before the next is added making a single piece can take an hour or more The most exacting sculptor may even wait a day between one coat and the next whose father and grandfather opened Villabate Alba in 1979 "Only the old timers still make them," he says even in a city like New York with a rich Italian culture a mere a handful of bakeries carry proper handmade frutta martorana; most of the marzipan sweets you find are mass-produced and hardly artistic the same guy has been molding and painting beautiful marzipan fruits for nearly 40 years Mauro's food-grade pigments are a lot like watercolors.That guy Mauro started learning the art of molding and painting marzipan when he was 10 working in the family bakery back in Sicily He makes about 45 pounds of frutta martorana every two weeks or so more during holidays like Christmas and Easter That's a relaxed schedule compared 30 years ago when "the neighborhood was all Italians," and "he had to make everything every day." Applying a base coat of yellow.For a full two days Mauro works at long a table in the basement plastic jars of pigments imported from Italy (American powdered food coloring and the sticky-sweet smell of almond paste Starting with a 45-pound pile of marzipan the size of a small boulder he spends the first eight hours kneading piece after piece until it’s smooth and free of wrinkles yellowing plaster molds he stores in a plastic bucket Nabbing details on the watermelon.ADVERTISEMENTADADThese molds which are at least as old as the bakery itself and many have been cast from actual fruit and vegetable specimens—hence the delicate pores on the mandarin skin so as Mauro presses fistfuls of marzipan into each he must shape the other half of the fruit by hand He knows just by look and by feel how to mirror the molded half and works carefully to make sure that each piece comes out identical Mauro then lets the marzipan dry out overnight so it loses its Play-Doh texture and becomes firm enough to hold its shape when handled picking up powdered pigments with his ragged brush (or sometimes a finger) and swirling them into a dish of clear alcohol-based imitation vanilla diluted with a little water The finished glazed fruit in all its glory.Most pieces get a base coat of yellow then Mauro adds one layer of color at a time which on most fruits just peeks out from lush He dabs a little green on the tip of each mandarin He adjusts to a lighter green and coats some of the apples with rapid then darkens the paint with a dab of brown for the banana stems “All the greens can’t be the same,” he explains By the time he mixes the next color and returns to the beginning and with a smooth swoop draws the curve where the watermelon flesh meets white rind “That’s one of the hardest things to do,” Manny points out “I could do this with my eyes closed,” Mauro says as he grins but are best eaten right away.The little details come last Mauro uses a food coloring marker (his only concession to modern convenience) to draw streaks on the banana and seeds on the watermelon he spritzes brown freckles on the apples and pears he pushes in little wire and paper stems and leaves (imported he’ll coat most of the pieces—except those that are naturally matte the fruits keep forever—Manny says some customers have had theirs as decoration for 20 years—but this kind of beauty is meant to be eaten Marguerite is a baker turned writer living in Brooklyn and is the former editor of Eater New York where she still writes a column about the making of great pastries ADVERTISEMENTADADWant more SAVEUR?Get our favorite recipes Articles may contain affiliate links, which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made. Registration on or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use. There is a widely held belief that a great cannolo must be filled to order ideally in full view of the paying customer no combination of ricotta and impastata automatically makes for soggy cannoli; that’s just something that happens as a result of subpar technique it’s easy to see that the once-spectacular New York cannoli can be very hard to find these days there are still some places that do this traditional pastry proud — here are the absolute best 1. Villabate Alba7001 18th Ave. plus a barely candied strip of orange peel on the other and they alone do most of the pastry’s sweet-talking 2. Juliana’s Pizza19 Old Fulton St. 3. Barano26 Broadway chef-owner Albert Di Meglio takes a minimalist approach piping just-sweet sheep’s-milk ricotta into shells that come apart in a righteous crackle Small nuggets of dried fruit and morsels of dark chocolate add candied flavors and bitter with a glass of Sicilian Marsala at the bar.) 4. Rimini Pastry Shop6822 Bay Pkwy. 5. Mamma Guidara’s at the NoMad 1170 Broadway The theatrical red-sauce extravaganza at Mamma Guidara’s caps off with a dish of tiramisu and a single makes a few hundred beautifully cratered shells in the morning then fills them with strained cows’-milk ricotta mixed with vanilla One end is dipped in decimated green pistachio the other in crumbled dark chocolate that scans more like crushed cocoa nibs than standard Italian bakery chips these cannoli remain some of the most elegant pastries in town Caffe Roma385 Broome St. Nonstop tourist traffic means you run the risk of getting poked in the eye with a selfie stick anytime you venture to this Little Italy spot. For some, the shell may be too thick and unruly, but the cool, ineffably spicy filling — is that cinnamon? — at this tin-ceilinged institution (since 1891) remains a powerful draw. Grab an espresso and brag how the old-school signage, today somewhat unchanged makes an appearance in The French Connection Cannoli Plus6903 New Utrecht Ave. Speaking of The French Connection: Not far from where a crucial leg of the iconic chase scene takes place is this tiny cannoli showroom beneath the elevated subway over New Utrecht Avenue While individual cannolo are available filled-to-order Cannoli Plus is a to-the-trade supplier that is open to the public so anyone can grab a pack of fresh shells from the floor-to-ceiling display choose a prefilled bag of cream in the back Circo’s312 Knickerbocker Ave. Circo’s has been open since 1945, yes, but it’s not so steeped in tradition that the crew is beyond crafting a fondant-wrapped bong cake for every struffoli platter Sugar-dusted and decorated with two cherries Circo’s cannoli exude a great deal of old-school charm Court Pastry Shop298 Court St. The bread-and-sweets showroom turns 70 next year, and it (pleasantly, certainly) seems like much is unchanged; sfogliatelle are no doubt as endearingly flaky as they were 21 years ago, when the pastry took top honors in this magazine’s Best of New York issue The filling is never too sweet or at all gritty La Guli 29-15 Ditmars Blvd. custardlike filling that can’t be found anywhere else after its Italian-immigrant owners had spent more than a decade opening bakeries in Manhattan customers can still partake in the so-called “pregnant cannoli,” one of the shop’s most enduring oddities which consist of a gaggle of tiny cannoli nestled in a jumbo shell Santina820 Washington St. tricolore cannoli at Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi’s sunny High Line restaurant which have received plenty of high marks in the past and super-nutty pistachio variations of sheep’s-milk ricotta filling Quality Italian 57 W a server rolls up after dinner with a variety of fillings (chocolate peanut butter The table-side ritual is completely over-the-top Vito’s Bakery1916 Ave and there’s more semisweet chips per square centimeter in the filling than pretty much all its major metropolitan-area competitors who make special visits back to Vito’s after they’ve moved away Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker The scene at the corner of 18th Avenue and 70th Street after a woman’s dead body was discovered in a vehicle parked there A small crowd gathered at the corner of 70th Street and 18th Avenue on the morning of Thursday watching with rapt attention as police investigated the death of a woman was discovered slumped down onto the passenger-side front seat of her gold 2003 Hyundai Sonata sedan at about 9:20 a.m The vehicle was parked outside the popular bakery Villabate Alba One onlooker said that the car had been ticketed by a traffic control agent but that cops had removed the ticket after determining that the vehicle’s driver was dead with the medical examiner yet to determine the cause of death BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP/Photo by Arthur de Gaeta Following the 33rd Annual Brooklyn Columbus Day Parade the first annual Cannoli Eating Contest took place held at the soon-to-be-completed Il Centro Much like during Coney Island’s famous annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest held during the summer participants were given six minutes to stuff as many of the Italian pastries down their gullets as possible The cannoli were provided by Bensonhurst bakery Villabate Alba The competition was hosted by the Federation of Italian American Organizations of Brooklyn (FIAO) and was on the Major League Eating schedule The parade had a lot of energy,” said George Shea The people were engaged the whole time and there were good vibes.” Seventeen-year eating contest veteran Eric Booker tied for first place and enjoyed the Bensonhurst experience I’ve done past cannoli eating contests so when I found out that Villabate was throwing one in Bensonhurst It was a pretty big crowd,” said Booker who is also subway conductor for the Transit Authority whom he has competed against in various competitions including the famous Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest They both finished eating nearly 27 cannoli Janus said he accidentally received an extra plate Shea was impressed by Booker’s performance and charisma “I haven’t seen Booker eat like that in 10 years,” he said “He was dancing throughout the contest and the crowd loved it.” Booker took time to enjoy the Villabate cannoli “I had to stay focused for the contest and not eat them to just to enjoy them Although this was the first cannoli contest in Bensonhurst “We are already talking about increasing the contest in size next year but you could feel the connection and energy that day I will definitely be there next year,” added Booker can still be found at these NYC shops through Easter weekend “Traveling butchers would come,” Lidia Bastianich recalls of her Italian childhood “They’d take this long knife and directly pierce the pig’s heart My grandmother was ready with a pail to catch the blood The chops and jowls and belly would turn into bacon or prosciutto or whatever but the most perishable part was eaten right away She also dubs it “the perfect dessert not just for connoisseurs but also for anemics.” For New Yorkers with bloodlust in their veins, here are some spots to sample around the city, including bloodless options for the non-carnivorous among us and the generally faint of heart This is probably the purest sanguinaccio in the city: just beef blood The mix is never frozen and sells at $15 per pound for the pudding or $3.50 for a single sanguinaccio-filled tartlet and at least four pounds of tempered dark chocolate,” says owner Salvatore Florio and a bit of orange peel is served at this year-old Long Island bakery Five-ounce cups sell for $6 and are often used as a dipping sauce for chiacchiere a thin fried dough covered in powdered sugar Although it’s been part of the menu since 1978 and the bakery figures it sells around 100 pints ($8 each) between Carnival and Easter as soon as they hear the word [blood] they back off As soon as you mention blood — even no blood — as soon as they hear that trigger word they back off right away,” Alaimo says “It’s a shame because it’s really delicious I leave it up to the people.” 7001 18th Avenue Billed as the oldest pastry shop in the Bronx’s Little Italy this 109-year-old institution uses old-school pig blood and charges roughly $15 per pound and I took over 35 years ago with all the recipes including sanguinaccio,” says owner Carmela Lucciola Gino’s still uses the same recipe brought over from Italy in 1957 but has switched to beef blood which has been shipped frozen to as far as Florida sells for $10 a pound but also comes in four-inch pudding-filled pastries for $4 each or in a 10-inch torte for $30 has been making sanguinaccio for 15 years for the “old-school Italians who buy it.” The beef blood version here includes plenty of diced fruits and mixed nuts It’s sold as pudding for $6.50 per pound or in small pies for $3.50 each you’d think it was a rich chocolate pudding “We sell the sanguinaccio in a pastry or loose in a cup and you eat it with a spoon It’s lick-the-bowl good.” 2349 Arthur Avenue I’m sick and tired of that,” Viterale says This thick sanguinaccio ($8 a pint) is packed with ingredients including a surprise appearance of vanilla The version here uses beef blood with a mix of sugar Owner Mario Giura says that in the 60s and 70s the 60-year-old bakery would sell 15 to 20 gallons of sanguinaccio sometimes I don’t even want to do it no more but I don’t want to make it and throw it away,” Giura says “But we make it and we try to keep it alive.” 5922 New Utrecht Avenue All the new restaurant openings in New York this month In an era where the media is constantly aflutter with news of shuttering mom & pops we’d like to celebrate an ilk of stores still open and thriving but the old-school Italian shop with its signature cannolis resplendent marzipan goodies and almond-flavored everything still holds its own Brooklyn These time-tested temples of gluten are steeped in history their walls are covered with actual family photos and browning Times clippings “My grandfather literally moved here with $75 in his pocket,” explained Anthony of Circo’s in Bushwick “He had help from family and worked another job in addition to helping in bakeries From that money he eventually saved enough to buy into the building that’s now Circo’s.” Many have evolved to sell non-Italian goods such as fondant cakes shaped like Minions all show a commitment to quality and honor recipes honed over generations We’d also like to shout out a few delicious places we weren’t able to visit this time around: Il Fornaretto for bread in Bensonhurst, Rimini Pastry Shoppe in Bensonhurst and Savarese Pastry for wedding and catering needs The main road in the limits of Marsascala had to be closed this evening because of a collision between a water bowser and a vehicle The Police said that it was informed of the accident in Triq Villabate between Zabbar and Marsascala at around 6.30pm Police officers went on the scene and an ambulance was called as some people were injured but it is not yet known whether anyone was grievously injured Four people were taken to hospital for treatment after the crash