Holy Ravioli: Falling in Amore With a Sweet Treat From Philadelphia's Termini Bros. Bakery

Picture, if you will, two of the greatest masterpieces of Italian cookery--the cannoli and the calzone.

Got it? Now, imagine that these two beauties get married and have a baby. An unholy, but wholly delicious, cheesy and carbohydratey baby.

It is with that vision that we introduce our newest obsession, the "Ravioli" pastry from Termini Bros. Bakery, a venerable institution of sweetness in Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market. In appearance it resembles an enormous half-moon ravioli, though its sheer size is more empanada or calzone-esque. But the physical resemblance to aforementioned savories is where the similarities end--once you take a bite, this baby is all sweetness. Its slightly sweet pastry casing encloses a hefty dose of decadent cannoli cream, rich, dense, and studded with chocolate chips.

And man, is it delicious. But eaters beware--this is a seriously substantive sweet, and is perhaps best enjoyed with a buddy. If you ate it all by yourself (and trust us, you probably will if no one is around) cardiac arrest might ensue--although really, there are far worse ways to go.

And til that moment, this is most certainly amore.

Are you in the Philadelphia area? Termini Bros. Bakery has a few locations (we went to the Reading Terminal Market one); visit termini.com for more information.

Wanna try making them? While we weren't able to locate a recipe for the "Ravioli" pastry per se, we're going to try to make our own by combining two recipes--one for cannoli cream filling found on cooks.com, and one for sweet empanada dough, found on laylita.com. We haven't done it yet but we'll let you know how it turns out.

Pastry Dough Ingredients:

• 3 cups all purpose flour
  
• ¼- ½ cup sugar
  
• Pinch of salt
  
• 2 sticks butter or 16 tbs, cut into 16 pieces
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 2-4 tbs cold water
  

Preparation:

1. Mix the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor.
   
2. Add the butter, eggs and water until a clumpy dough forms.
   
3. Knead the dough for a few minutes.
   
4. Form dough into 2 balls, flatten into thick discs, and chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
   
5. Roll out the dough into a thin sheet and cut out round disc shapes for empanadas, use round molds or a small plate or cup as a mold, you can choose how large based on whether you want small or medium sized empanadas .
   
6. Use the empanada discs immediately or store in the refrigerator or freezer to use later.You should get about 15-18 medium sized empanada discs or 25-30 small empanada discs.
   

Cannoli Cream Filling

• 3 c. very dry ricotta
  
• 1 c. granulated sugar
  
• 2 tsp. vanilla
  
• Chocolate chips
  

Drain ricotta in a colander until very dry, overnight or longer if necessary. Mix with sugar and vanilla. Beat with electric mixer at high speed for 8-10 minutes. Fold in some chocolate chips and use to fill cannoli or between cake layers. Fills about 15-18 cannoli.