Pasta Maker Machine

While you can make your own pasta entirely by hand, it's hard work and time consuming. A proper pasta maker machine makes the job considerably easier.

There are some electric pasta makers on the market which can mix and knead the dough as well as roll it, they tend to be very expensive for the home user. Manual pasta makers are considerably cheaper and ideal for normal use. Also, you have little control while an electric pasta maker is moving the dough through the machine. On the other hand, a manual hand crank is easy to turn and you can stop it whenever you like to test the consistency of the pasta dough.

Some machines have additional attachments allowing you to make a wide variety of shapes from macaroni and spaghetti to fettuccine and ravioli. It's a good idea to choose a model which has a clamp for fixing it to the worktop, this stabilises the machine whilst it's being used. For the same reason, look for one with heavy construction. Some machines have 10cm wide rollers, others are 15cm. The wider the roller, the less hand-rolling needs to be done. This model is highly recommended and great value for money. In a somewhat higher price bracket, Imperia make some of the best pasta makers and get positive reviews from almost all sites. The Imperia Pastaia Italiana Pasta Set is a quality Italian-made model which includes a dough rolling machine with double cutter for tagliatelli, fettuccine and an additional cutter for spaghetti, the Imperia Ravioli Maker is also included.

Using a Pasta Machine is easy:

Set the machine's rollers on their widest setting and feed the dough through. Do this several times, turning and folding the dough each time.

When the dough is uniformly smooth, adjust the rollers down to the next setting and repeat the process again. Continue until the machine is at its narrowest setting.

Your lump of dough will now have been transformed into perfect thin sheets. The secret is to methodically pass the pasta through the machine several times for each width setting - don't be tempted to skip a notch.

Once the sheets have dried slightly, they are ready to be used for making lasagne, ravioli, tortelloni, etc. Or use cutters to make long shapes, such as tagliatelle or linguine...there literally hundreds of different types of pasta shapes and sizes!

Specialist Machines

Other machines are available for making specific types of pasta, for example this Cavatelli machine is designed especially for making Cavatelli and Gnocchi.