Recipe: Homemade Pasta

In this post I wanted to share my experience making homemade pasta! I will share the materials I used, 2 different flours I tried and how I brought it all together (cooking pun intended)!

First I gathered my materials: a pasta roller and the ingredients. I have a Kitchen Aid mixer so I bought the roller attachment below. Just getting the roller, not the cutting attachments, was also the cheaper option to dip my toe in.

Online I also found a hand held pasta cutter with a straight and ruffled wheel. We also used parchment paper to contain the mess and line the cookie sheets for our pasta to dry on.

Flours. My Mum had some %100 semolina on hand but I picked up another bag at the store that I learned was a semolina and wheat flour blend. My Mum and I decided to try both of the recipes on the bag to see which one we preferred.

            

I used my mixer to kneed the dough with the dough hook attachment for both recipes. When mixing we noticed the semolina/wheat blend was to wet so we added more semolina/wheat flour. Even after leaving the dough rest the recommended 20 minutes the semolina/wheat was wet so I added even more straight semolina to it while rolling and it came out great! even better than then straight semolina that turned out not as smooth.

After the dough had rested I cut the ball in 4 to roll out a quarter at a time. I rolled the dough in straight semolina then put it through the roller at the #8 setting. Once through the roller, I dusted the dough sheet on both sides with straight semolina, rolled the sheet up then put it through the #8 roller again. I repeated this at least 4 times until the dough was no longer sticky and ripping when coming out of the rollers. To make the ravioli I put it through the #3 setting for the final thickness.


The final pasta dough recipe we liked turned out to be:
3 cups semolina/wheat blend (pasta flour)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup warm water
1 cup of %100 semolina to knead and roll in
Plus extra of either flour to lay shaped pasta in to dry

Picking fillings was my favorite part. I made a cheese and ricotta blend and turned one of my favorite pasta sauces into a filling. I made my fillings smooth by blending them in the food processor and application was easy by piping the fillings out with a piping bag. I used an egg wash to seal my ravioli of 1 egg and 1 tablespoon of cream.

The easiest shape for me to make was about 1.5 inch square raviolis. I put 1/2 teaspoon of filling in each. I rolled out my sheet, piped the filling in 3 rows along 1/2 of the sheet then folded over to seal as seen below. Be sure to push out the air when sealing!

     

Once shaped I let the pasta dry out a bit for about 20 minutes. I think that rest time also allowed the egg wash to fully seal the ravioli. Cooking the pasta was also easy! a few minutes in gently boiling salted water and they were ready to be paired with sauce to enjoy!

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy your pasta!