Gourmet Pasta Press

We love fresh pasta and have made it by hand rolling or using the roller attachment and cutting normally. Thought we would try this for other types. It works really well and is nicely made. Some reviews trash it for being hard to clean, which I find a little unfair. It’s an extruded with the parts needed to make it…extrude. Yes there are some small spaces needing extra attention in cleaning but it just takes a little time. It’s not hard. I do think the buccatini is a little too wide ti be called that. But it’s quite good regardless. More like Pici sized. A little care and attention and it should last a long time. Love making enough at once to dry and keep for the weeks ahead. Use the 00 flour, I do think it makes a difference.

I absolutely love this. I have a family of four and so I wanted to make our pasta at home amongst other things and so now mill my own flour, create the pasta base and add it to this noodle maker. It does take a little time to figure out in the beginning but once you get going its honestly super simple. I saw other reviews where it states hard to clean which I did not experience that. It all comes apart pretty easily once you figure it out and I just soak the plate and cleaned up quite nicely.

This takes your pasta game to the next level. Making pasta in the shape you want just got a lot easier. This little gadget is fantastic. Disclaimer I've only used it once so far. The noodles came out perfectly shaped. It was so much easier then the counter mounted pasta maker that makes you crank the handle. The clean up is always a chore with pasta makers. Dough is wasted/lost inside this pasta maker. We ended up tossing out a fairly large amount of dough hen we cleaned it out. Clean up was much easier then the counter top counterpart, but we did lose some dough. The amount lost is not massive you end up with about an 1"- 1 1/4" ball trapped inside the press near the installed plate. Making the pasta dough was really the hardest part, and that was fairly easy. I would highly recommend this press to anyone that wants to make pasta at home. It's so much easier to use and way easier to clean up afterwards.

Love it! My daughter wanted to make her own lentil pasta and I decided this item would be easier as you roll the dough into small balls to feed into the machine. She used just lentil flour and water. The pasta came out dry enough that we probably didn’t need as much flour in our catching container as we used. The pasta took 2-3 minutes to cook. I am so happy I bought this machine. And kudos to Amazon because after I bought it and used it once, I saw it go on sale. I didn’t want to return and rebuy, so I contacted them through the chat and they offered a partial refund for the difference. Another five star service. Very pleased.

Like many other users of this product, my first batch of pasta was a disaster. My main complaint is a common one: the noodles stuck together upon trying to cut them, lost their shape, and were generally unmanageable. I ended up balling up the noodles and using the dough with my other pasta maker, which uses rollers instead of an extruder. Where I went wrong, and I suspect I'm not alone, is that I didn't like the way the Kitchen Aid formula mixes (looks clumpy and dry), so I kept adding water in order to obtain a homogeneous consistency. BAD IDEA! BUT, if you just change a few things from the instructions that come with this product, you'll be much more satisfied with your results. The first: add oil to the mix, about one teaspoon per two eggs. The second: mix the ingredients by hand until a homogeneous consistency is achieved. Start by using the handle of a wooden spoon as a mixing tool. At first the dough will look clumpy and dry, but be patient and persevere. When you can't make further process, use your bare hands. Knead the dough as necessary until all the flour is used up. Then make the dough into little pellets, no bigger than a walnut in size, preferably even smaller. After 20 minutes wait time, start the machine and extrude away. A bit of care and the use of a pasta rack will prevent the noodles from sticking together. I just finished making a batch of bucatini and they came out almost perfect and quite tasty. Incidentally, I use Caputo Semola di Grano Duro instead of general purpose flour. Don't know that it makes a huge difference, I'm just adding this fact in the interest of full disclosure. As far as the other common complaints, yes, the machine is not easy to clean. This is just a drawback of the process, and any extrusion machine will have the same issue. Also, since a certain amount of dough will remain in the machine regardless of what you do, there will be a certain amount of inevitable waste, another byproduct of the extruding process. The good news is that, since the amount of waste will be the same, bigger batch will result is less waste percentage wise. Another complaint is that it doesn't fit right and in some cases comes off, causing damage. I don't have much to offer on that one since mine simply didn't have that problem. So, overall, I'm satisfied with this product. It makes a good change of pace from the usual rolled pasta. Although the noodles will never look as good as the stuff you see on the KA YouTube clips, with a few tweaks to the instructions provided, it actually works as advertised.

The pasta I made is completely gluten free and grain free since I used red lentil flour! I have wanted this attachment for some time now but I was concerned that a wheat free dough wouldn't work, would be too sticky, or wouldn't run through. I have not had commercially made pasta in over 4 years since my body went haywire from a worsening chronic illness and suddenly could no longer eat wheat/gluten or corn. Within 6 months my life had been dumped on my head. I would react to the corn added into salt and even in tap water, leaving me in excruciating pain and violently sick. Also because of my chronic illness I have very low energy levels and get worn out exceedingly easily. So even though I figured out my pasta dough a couple years ago I rarely make it because it is so physically demanding. Plus I specifically missed macaroni noodles. I was thrilled to see the orange dough coming out of the machine the first time! It will certainly take some practice to get the noodle lengths correct but that's not a big deal at all. I think my dough is still a little too sticky as the large macaroni kept regularly sealing on the end. Next time I'll add a bit more flour to see if it works better. Red lentil flour makes for a sticky dough anyway simply because it is not wheat so it behaves differently. Out of all my tests of the kinds of flour I can still have (brown rice, garbanzo/chickpea) only the red lentil held together when cooked. Red lentil flour is super easy to grind at home. I use my WonderMill for convenience and because I have it, but before I had that it would grind just as easily in an inexpensive ($20) coffee grinder dedicated to grinding flour. Even in the grinder the red lentils pulverize easily and leave a superfine flour. I do not know where or if commercially ground red lentil flour can be bought. Grinding it at home is so super easy that i just didn't worry about it. I am also very pleased to have a pasta that is better for my diabetic spouse to be able to eat! Because of the severe food restrictions imposed by my body, there is almost no prepackaged 'convenience' foods that I can have anymore. I also can't have commercially extracted starches (like tapioca, potato, etc.) due to corn cross-contamination issues so finding flours that worked for me was far from easy. I am THRILLED to be able make noodles ahead and dry them. I have done this before with the red lentil dough and it works great. I'm only 42 years old but I thought macaroni was something I'd never be able to eat again. Funny thing about red lentils when cooked is the color changes, so these look like and FEEL like regular wheat noodles when eating them! At least to the best of my knowledge; I grew up eating homemade macaroni and cheese so I'd think I know rather well. ;D It certainly takes a bit of work to clean up the machine, but honestly it isn't too bad. The only thing I wish I could change is to have two more die plates, one for small shell noodles, and another for mini lasagna noodles like the size found in Hamburger Helper. I would be utter thrilled to have those options! I can't stop imagining all the pasta dishes I can have again! :D --------------------------- Red Lentil Egg Pasta 250 g. Red Lentil Flour* 3 Large Eggs 1/4 tsp. Salt 1.) Mix & kneed dough until fully combined. 2.) Divide into 30 g. balls for 'walnut sized' portions. 3.) Use pasta machine as directed. 4.) Bring water to boil & cook fresh pasta for 7 minutes. Drain. Dried noodles: Boil 5 minutes & cover and let sit 7 minutes before draining. (This was the cooking directions listed for the (thicker) hand rolled dried pasta I made in the past. I'm including it here in case you needed a bit of a guide for cooking the dried pasta. The pasta from the KitchenAid attachment has much thinner walls so I'd assume the 7 minutes can be reduced but not entirely sure by how much right now. *Next batch I'm going to try 275 g. Red Lentil Flour to see if it makes a less sticky dough that doesn't seal the macaroni tubes when cutting off.

I have used this attachment three times so far and it works great! And it's a lot of fun. My daughter really enjoys kneading the dough because it smells so good. I think the trick is to make sure the dough isn't too dry and to feed the dough balls in slowly as to not jam the machine. Speed setting will vary. For tube noodles, I've used a high speed on the motor. For fusilli, I used a mid-speed setting. I haven't tried the spaghetti plate yet. For clean-up, the user manual recommends waiting until the pasta is dry (the next day) to remove the last bits of dough from the plate using their picking tool. After seeing a YouTube video about how the dough can accumulate inside the plate, I took the video creator's advice and opened the extruding plate with a case opening tool. You can buy that tool on Amazon, it's called The Opening Tool, by Unlimited Innovations. The plate easily opens, and easily goes back together and it makes cleanup very quick. The quality of this unit is very good too. I use the 325-watt KitchenAid stand mixer. We made a big batch of noodles two days ago, and I put the uncooked noodles in the refrigerator. I used them for soup tonight, and besides being delicious, I had to smile thinking about the fun we had making them. I highly recommend this product. Using this machine feels like you are playing with play-doh, but you get to eat it.

Turned out to be the 100% correct decision to purchase this instead of the Philips pasta maker: - The right machine: I have been making pasta for 7 years using the Mercato hand roller + rolling pin + old fashioned chitarra. But you cannot replicate high-end restaurant al dente extruded noodles. Yes, egg and 100% 'double zero" noodles and stuffed pasta can be made using the roller and the chitarra, but not water and 100% semola spaghetti. This is the next best thing unless you want to pay $3000 for a junior professional extrusion machine and make enough pasta for a month. - Adequate power: I have a Kitchenaid professional 600 that delivers 575 watts, vs the wimpy Philips with 200 watts. Even the Kitchenaid Artisan comes with 325 watts. How can you extrude great spaghetti without power? No need to worry about over working and burning the motor either. - the right dough: You have to have the correct dough texture. Every day is different in terms of ambient temperature and humidity. Here you can make sure it is right before you extrude it. You can feel it in your hands. With Philips, it is mixed within the machine. I don't see how you can control the dough using the latter. - the right flour: 100% durum wheat that is finely ground called semola rimacinata (not to be confused with semolina), Water at 150 degrees F and nothing else. Make it a little drier than you would if you were to roll it instead. If you want egg noodles, that is an entirely different thing, use the Mercato roller. - is it easy to clean? If your dough is right, absolutely. Marginally more work than the Mercato and chitarra -- you clean those too, right? Small bit of dough in the machine can be easily scraped and stored in fridge to be reused in the next batch, especially when it is just flour and water. Caution: rigatoni and elbows crack after drying at room temperature for more than a day. Best to eat them fresh after extrusion. For bucatini, can store in fridge wrapped for another day or two and no cracking. Otherwise comes out perfect. Just a little semolina (now you use this) to sprinkle on spaghetti. Don't hang fresh noodles on hanger -- it only distorts the shape and if your dough is right, no need to dry any further by hanging.