KitchenAid Pasta Excellence / Roller Set

Works perfectly as intended – I bought the three piece past roller and cutter set from Bing Lee. It consists of the roller, a spaghetti cutter, and a fettucini cutter. The pieces are beautifully made in Italy and very easy to install on the KitchenAid stand mixer. In operation they are smooth and fast - I operate the stand mixer on the slowest setting for these rather than the… Read more

slightly higher speeds advised in the manual.

Your success in making pasta however comes down to the dough. I have read other reviews on pasta rollers for KA and manual devices where it is clear that the dough was not properly prepared. By the time you are ready to commence rolling, the pasta dough should not be moist or sticky. Wet or sticky dough is going to cause problems with any pasta rolling machine. Preparing the dough requires 8 - 10 minutes of heavy manual kneading of the correct proportions of 00 flour, egg, and a little olive oil - the dough definitely cannot be prepared in the stand mixer. Pasta dough is heavy, tough and elastic - the KA will not gather and knead it for you properly. Then 30 minutes resting, tightly wrapped in plastic film, to allow the gluten to relax so that it can be rolled out. There are no shortcuts.

The following link is an excellent on-line comprehensive guide to making pasta using rollers and the proportions work perfectly. It also shows what it is like to use the KA rollers. If you are starting out on your pasta making journey, do yourself a favour and watch this before taking ANY further steps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_fu5RaXMVk

Other little tip - do not wash in dishwasher - not even once. This will kill the bearings inside. The aggressive detergent will attack the bearings, strip the lubrication, and oxidise the steel leading to flaking of the metal finish. If you have made the dough correctly all you should need to do is brush out any flour or semolina, or tiny bits of residual dough - and wipe down with a damp cloth. Allow it 30 minutes to dry before storing. Do that and this should last many years.

I highly recommend this pasta and roller set. Well made, and great value for the money - I think I paid AU$289 for the kit.