If you love cannolis but aren't quite sure you want to get into advanced pastry-making then you will love this cannoli bundt cake recipe!
★ Why You'll Love this Recipe ★
This cake is super easy to make, using cake mix as a starting point. One of my favorite cooking hacks is doctoring cake mixes.
You'd be surprised to hear how many professional chefs also start with a cake mix. It's not a sin, I swear! It's a time-saver and you can get amazing flavor from a cake mix.

This pretty and yummy cake is topped of with a dusting of powdered sugar and more mini chocolate chips.
An Easy Dessert for Special Occasions
Celebrating a birthday, holiday or anniversary? This is an impressive dessert that tastes so good and is really easy to make. An all-around win.
★ Ingredients You'll Need ★
All the cannoli flavor you love...
... baked into a cake!
To pull this off, you just need some basic cake-making ingredients plus a few traditional Italian dessert ingredients.
We'll start with vanilla cake mix and add ricotta cheese, milk, and chocolate chips.
The ricotta cheese adds flavor as well as moisture. So you end up with a dense and delicious cake.
Next comes the frosting.
This is sort of a buttercream frosting with ricotta cheese and vanilla added in creating that traditional cannoli flavor you know and love.
★ How to Make this Recipe ★
This cannoli bundt cake is especially designed to be an easy-to-make, yet impressive dessert.
The full recipe is detailed as well as a how-to video can be found below. But to give you a quick idea of the steps, here's an overview of what's involved:
- Squeeze ricotta to remove liquid.
- Mix together cake mix, chocolate chips, eggs, milk, oil and ricotta to form batter.
- Pour batter into greased bundt pan.
- Bake then let cool.
- Turn cooled cake onto a cake plate.
- Mix together frosting ingredients.
- Top bundt cake with powdered sugar, frosting and chocolate chips.
- Serve!
★ Tips & FAQs ★
There are a few tips and tricks to nailing this cake on the first try so be sure to follow the directions and check out the notes for a few extra tips.
How to Get Your Bundt Cake out of the Pan
Without falling apart, breaking in half or cracking.
Yes, there is a secret to getting your cooked bundt cake to drop smoothly out of the bundt pan.
You need to use baking spray.
I use Baker's Joy which is made of flour and oil. The combination is like magic and the cake slides right out of the pan when you use a generous amount.
What size bundt pan is needed?
For this recipe, you will want a large bundt pan for this recipe. I recommend a 12-cup size or larger.
If using a smaller bundt pan, you can cut the recipe down as needed.
Keep in mind, the batter will expand when baked so you want to make sure the bundt pan is not filled up more than ¾ full or you could eventually have a mess on your hands.
Need a large bundt pan? Shop bundt pans on Amazon
Storing this Cannoli Cake
Since this cake is made with ricotta and cream cheese, your best bet is to store this in the fridge. Bring out the cake about 20-30 minutes before serving to let it get to room temperature.
The cannoli frosting doubles as a dip!
This is a two-for-one recipe in that you can actually serve the frosting as a dip! So, if you're looking for a fun, sharable dessert or party snack then make just the frosting (you can double it if feeding a crowd) and serve it with a sweet cookie. I like to use vanilla wafers or waffle ice cream cones broken into a pieces and dusted with powdered sugar.
★ More Recipes You'll Love ★
Want more easy dessert ideas?
Browse all my dessert recipes and be sure to Pin your favorites for later!
This cannoli bundt cake recipe was featured on South Your Mouth!
Cannoli Bundt Cake
Ingredients
- 1 box vanilla cake mix
- 1 cup mini chocolate chips
- 3 eggs
- ½ cup milk
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup ricotta cheese, squeezed to remove liquid
Cannoli Frosting
- ½ cup ricotta cheese, squeezed to remove liquid
- 4 oz cream cheese
- ¼ cup softened butter
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- A few shakes salt, to taste
Toppings
- 2 tablespoon powdered sugar
- ½ cup mini chocolate chips
Instructions
- In a large bowl, combine cake mix with chocolate chips. Toss to coat chocolate chips. Next add eggs, milk, oil and ricotta cheese. Beat with a hand mixer until completely blended.
- Generously coat bundt pan with baking spray (flour and oil) then pour cake batter into bundt pan.
- Bake at 350˚for 30-35 minutes. Cook time varies by pan. When the top of the cake starts to firm up, insert a toothpick into the middle of the cake and when it comes out completely clean, remove the cake from oven.
- Let cake cool completely. To speed up cooling, you can put the cake in the freezer for 30 minutes.
- While cake is cooling, prepare the frosting by blending together ricotta cheese, cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, vanilla and salt with a mixer.
- Next, take the cool cake and place your cake plate on top of the bundt pan, face down. Gently flip the cake over onto the plate.
- Shake powdered sugar onto the cake then scrap icing evenly over top. Finally, top with chocolate chips. Slice and enjoy!
Hi
Can you make this in a 9 x 13 pan?
Hi Victoria, Yes, you could. Try reducing the bake time 10 minutes and then check the center of the cake to be sure it's done. Cook longer as needed. Cake it done as soon as a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Hello, Could I know if this frosting is good for drape? I don’t know is sticky, I would like to know your recommendations.Thanks for share the recipe looks great.
Hi Marle, The frosting hardens slightly but remains wet to touch. Hope this helps!
I needed an Italian dessert for a dinner party. This was a hit everyone loved it. Easy to make moist and delicious.
I just made this cake for a birthday dinner party that I had. It was DELICIOUS 😋 & everyone loved it!!!! I will definitely be making it again. Thank you for sharing this Cannoli Bundt Cake recipe.
Hi! This recipe looks great. Any thoughts about substituting mascarpone cheese for the cream cheese in the frosting?
Thanks!
Those two cheeses are very similar so you won't have a problem. You can use the exact same amount. Sounds yummy! Let me know how it turns out. 🙂
Amazing cake. Was a hit with everyone. I’m not even a big fan of cannolis and loved. The little bit of extra frosting we had leftover was great for dipping strawberries in.
Hi Rebecca, I'm so glad you enjoyed the cannoli cake and were able to put the extra frosting to good use! Thanks for the feedback.
Best way to keep cake fresh in frig? I have it under a cake tin.
Yes, store it in the fridge loosely covered so that there is some airflow to prevent condensation or drying out. A cake tin that is perforated in some way would be great.
Oops, I just scrolled down and saw the answer to my question.
Can this Cake be frozen?
Is vanilla cake same as white cake? I don't believe I've seen vanilla cake mix before.
You can use vanilla, yellow or white cake mix. I just prefer vanilla if you can find it.