Roma 6 Inch Traditional Style Pasta Machine

A cheap pasta maker machine need not be an inferior one.  The Roma Pasta Maker is cheap for the price but built to last.  As we have seen with the Pinzon Pasta Maker and Villaware Pasta Machine it is perfectly possible to buy a decent product for under $30 that will keep your family fed and enjoying authentic Italian meals for years to come.

The reason that even a budget pasta machine can be a good buy is that their design is simple and traditional.  After centuries of making great pasta the Italian’s have come up with a straightforward design that has little that could ever go wrong.  Yes, you can pay more and get an automatic pasta maker for example, but why bother when a simple hand-cranked model will keep on turning out great fresh pasta with little or no maintenance in your kitchen?  That being said some of the other traditional models are likely to be more robust and made of sturdier metal.

But, if you plan on making occasional home-made pasta a budget model such as this one will serve you well.  The 6″ rollers will cope with home-cooking volumes of pasta.  Eight settings allow you to gradually reduce the thickness of the dough, to get fine smooth pasta.  A useful C-clamp will let you set the pasta maker somewhere solid and prevent any movement – but you will need to consider where you can place it!

There are a range of additional cutters available to help you produce Angel Hair, Spaghetti, Linguini, Lasagna, Lasagnette, Fettuccini and Half Moon & Square Raviolis.  But to be honest I wouldn’t worry too much about that to begin with.  Get your sheets sorted out and you can cut all manner of shapes by hand.  Once you are using the machine more regularly and have got your dough making sorted out, then its time for fancy shapes!

The Roma 6 inch pasta machine is one of those no-nonsense manual kitchen gadgets.  The key to success is getting your dough right.  To stiff and you will struggle to get it through the rollers.  Too sticky and you will simply end up in a horrible mess!  Practice makes perfect and you will quickly learn what great home-made pasta dough “feels” like.

Is the Roma 6 the Best Pasta Maker Machine?  Honestly, no, my personal recommendation would be the Atlas Pasta Machine or Imperia Pasta Maker..  But, is it one of the best budget models?  Definitely – you can tell from the customer reviews (click the image above for all reviews from past customers).

KitchenAid KPRA Pasta Roller Attachment for Stand Mixers – Click for Pricing

Now, obviously here at the Pasta Maker site we’re pretty enthusiastic about good, old-fashioned pasta maker machines.  The sort that roll out traditional fresh pasta dough easily and finely.  What we tend not to be so enthused about are those ‘promise everything, delivery very little’ automatic pasta makers.  The reason is that to get to grips with a pasta extruder really does take a while.  Yes, in theory they’re great, but for many (myself included) they are nothing but messy contraptions that are impossible to clean!

So, what am I doing talking about KitchenAid Pasta Attachments then?  Well, there are several different attachments produced by KitchenAid that will help you convert your stand mixer into a pasta machine.  And some are far better than others.

First of all there is a whole kit that mixes, extrudes and rolls your pasta.  Personally we would avoid these like the plague.  You’ve got a mixer, so use that to mix, but don’t get too bogged down with asking machinery to do everything.  The thing is unless you fork out for either a course in pasta making, or to buy pasta manufacturing equipment you are likely to be sadly dissapointed if you expect a small household appliance to cope with turning your possibly imperfectly prepared dough into something spectacular.

Oh yes in theory you can produce all sorts of exciting pasta sheets such as macaroni tubes.  But in practice it is terribly difficult to get to grips with.  Personally we think it is far better to learn to make fabulous textured, fabulous tasting fresh pasta even if the shape it is served in is not so ‘exciting’.  Think traditional and you’ll be making great fresh pasta!

Now, that’s one gadget dismissed but what about the picture at the top?  Those are pasta rollers, just like you find on any common Italian Pasta Maker but with the advantage that they fit snugly onto your KitchenAid stand mixer.  Really there is nothing that could go wrong with these simple bits of shiny kitchen equipment and that is why we just love them.  The three attachments included in the great KitchenAid Pasta set are of course, a pasta roller, plus a fettuccine cutter, and a linguine fini cutter.  That’s all you need to produce a wealth of great pasta shapes without all the fuss of extruding it in anything too convoluted.

If you still have a burning desire for a new electronic kitchen gadget, forget automatic pasta makers that do struggle to offer the best results.  Try instead a Zojirushi rice cooker as these really are fool-proof in producing fantastic results for the home cook.

Sometimes simple is best and that’s what you get if you buy the right KitchenAid Pasta Maker Attachments.

CucinaPro 178 Fresh Pasta Set – Click to Buy

If you want to buy one Pasta Maker Machine that includes just about everything you could need to get creative in the kitchen and make all sorts of great homemade Italian Pasta, the Cucina Pro 178 Fresh Pasta Set is certainly worth a look.

It’s true you don’t need too much when you first start making your own fresh pasta.  But a few extra cutters and attachments can really motivate you into trying new ideas and new recipes.  This is an inexpensive piece of kitchen equipment.  But when you are starting out it seems a waste to buy anything too expensive.  With this kind of budget pasta maker you can get to grips with the techniques involved in producing great quality fresh pasta without having to invest too much to begin with.

For the occasional or new pasta cook a budget machine is more than adequate.  The fact is the basic mechanism for them all is pretty standard.  You are looking for, after all, a glorified rolling pin!  There may be heavier machines and better looking ones around.  But to roll simple pasta dough all you need is the rolling mechanism itself and they are all pretty similar.  So long as you look after the machine, keep it dry and create dough that is not too dry, you should have no problems with this particular model.

We have to be honest here, there are perhaps, better machines around.  But you pay for them!  And, if you are a beginner or merely an occasional fresh pasta creator this budget pasta machine will certainly keep you going.  However, if you do not need the inspiration of so many cutting attachments we would recommend instead teh CucinaPro 159 Imperia Pasta Machine, for just a touch more solidity.

Made from chrome plated steel it is pretty solid and since there is actually very little that complicated in the design, very little can go wrong with such a product.   The rollers and cutters are stainless steel so once cleaned these will keep good for a long time to come and prove a sanitary design for the parts actually in contact with food.  On the whole the customer reviews confirm that this is low priced but built to last, and with a little care and attention will help you produce great pasta.

The fact that the CucinaPro 178 Pasta Maker has seven thickness settings for the pasta to be rolled out to is great.  Gradually winding your pasta dough through to become thinner and thinner is the key to success and this particular machine makes that bit as easy as it can be!  The cutter attachments mean you can easily create spaghetti, fettuccini, angel hair, ravioli and lasagnette.

Because it comes with such obvious necessities like a ravioli cuter, the CucinaPro 178 does make an exceedingly economical choice for a new pasta maker machine.  A good gift idea for someone that is toying with the idea of creating fresh pasta but has yet to have a go!

Your first decision should be whether you want to create your dough yourself and then just use a little help from a machine for the rolling and cutting.  Or would your rather simply throw in the ingredients and let electricity get on with the work of creating delicious fresh pasta.

If you already own a product such as a KitchenAid food processor you could opt to simply buy one of the many pasta making accessories to allow your processor to take the hassle out of rolling our your dough.

At the moment automatic pasta machines for home use tend to be most suited to those making small quantities of ordinary pasta.  They are not as flexible as creating your own dough since they need the dough to be reasonably wet and tend not to cope so well with 100% wholewheat pasta recipes as these are tougher to mix and extrude. Of course, if you have the budget and requirement for a fully automated pasta machine that will cope with any recipe they can be found, but tend to focus more on the requirements of the restaurant trade.

By far the most reliable way to create good homemade pasta is to mix the dough yourself, either by hand or in a processor with a dough hook attachment.  Then progress to the simple and solid pasta maker machine that will roll your pasta as thin as desired and help you cut it simply and neatly.

If you are just starting out and are unlikely to be feeding huge parties with Italian recipes on a regular basis even the cheapest hand cranked pasta maker machine will work wonders and should satisfy your desire to cook authentic Italian cuisine.

Buon Appetito

Nothing can beat the velvety smoothness of homemade pasta.  Sauces cling in such a different manner when dealing with fresh egg pasta.  Plus of course it becomes so much easier to personalise dishes such as ravioli and tortellini when creating the pasta from scratch.

The Pasta Maker Machine comes in various guises.  From simple hand cranked rollers to all singing-all dancing electronic pasta machines that will do nearly everything for you.  The key to great pasta is rolling the pasta dough.  This part is where everything could go wrong without the help of a simple hand operated pasta roller.  These allow for repeat rollings to thinner and thinner thicknesses, allowing the cook to create perfect fine pasta in minutes.

From the rolling, we move on to cutting the pasta.  Home Pasta Maker Machines generally come with a few cutters.  This is great to get things started, but as you become more adept at creating perfect pasta yourself, you are likely to want to try more styles and shapes.  Additional cutters can be bought that fix to various pasta machines, or you can also buy hand cutters that you use to cut flat pasta sheets such as lasagna yourself.

Most customers are extremely happy with the ease of use of the popular pasta machines.  There are occasionally teething troubles.  But these are primarily part of the process of learning to create the perfect dough in the first place.  Pasta dough is an extremely simple food stuff.  Flour and water create the most basic pasta doughs, but egg, olive oil, herbs and spinach are regularly added to create rather more interesting fresh pasta recipes.

Most of the popular pasta machine models come with recipe ideas and of course full instructions.  Even so, everyone’s kitchen is different and this can affect the performance of flour due to different humidity and heat.  Practice really does make for the perfect pasta.  Knowing just how the dough should feel allows you to add exactly the right volume of liquid as recipes can only ever be a guideline.

Here we will be looking at pasta makers and pasta machines.  From the simplest design to the most complex with everything in between.  Looking at customer reviews and finding the best deals to ensure you find the best Pasta Maker Machine for you and your family to enjoy a future of Perfect Pasta Meals.

Buon Appetito