Philips Pasta Maker

Don’t have anything to add other than to say homemade pasta is friggen awesome. We got the attachments for the Kitchenaide and use it a few times a year. I could get even fatter than I already am (6’ -230lbs of lardass) with that thing so I have to stop myself.

I wasn't even in the market for this and just bought it after seeing your post. My wife can't eat gluten so our pasta choices are rather limited. The reviews on this were pretty good and should give us a lot of easy options for things we can't usually make. Ravioli is one that comes to mind. I'm intrigued by the comments of how quick and easy it is to use. I also bought a digital food scale since many comments stressed using weight over volume as being key.

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The only one I've seen before is that Kitchen Aide attachment and those are expensive AF.

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This one ( LINK) is only $150 and it looks pretty awesome. There are other off-brand attachments for $100.

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Dave Worth

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Just checking to see if yours came in yet and if you had a chance to use it.

Finally used it this weekend. As I said before I got it mostly because my wife can't eat gluten and I wanted more options. This thing is great and couldn't be much easier.

I found a gluten free recipe online that called for two types of flour (rice and tapioca), xanthan gum, salt and eggs. It was easy as measuring out the dry ingredients and pouring that in the machine. Hit a couple of buttons and it starts mixing. Slowly add in whisked eggs and it turned for I think 3 minutes. Then it goes in reverse and starts pushing the dough through the piece that shapes it. I went with fettucine for the first time.

The good points? It was extremely easy to do. The first time I try something it never goes right (like last weekend with the Japanese recipes). But even though it looked really crumbly in the machine, what came out was great. I cut it as it got long enough and laid it out on a board to rest.

Cleanup wasn't too hard. I left it out overnight (as I'd read for a good tip) and most of the leftover dough crumbled right off. Light scrubbing took care of the rest. Cleaning the disc that shapes it is a little more involved but not that bad at all.

It was the best gluten free pasta I've had so far. Very smooth and not chalky or crunchy like many store bought brands. Fresh gluten free pasta is usually pretty good to me, but once it cools it becomes dry and never tastes right the next day. I like cold pasta and meat sauce for leftovers and gluten free pasta doesn't work for me. This stuff was fine the next day and I ate some cold. The recipe did say boil for 5-6 minutes. I went 6 and it may have been too soft. I'll have to cut down the time and see if I can get it more al dente without being undercooked.

The bad? Not much, really after 1 attempt. The machine isn't very effective at using all of the dough. You either have to stop it and scrape it back up towards the end or deal with some waste. If I made 10 ounces of dough then I probably lost 5-10% to that. Not a problem for me but just a note. It's not cheap but feels worth it for me at $200. It's also big and will take up some space.

That's it. I loved it after the first attempt and I'm used to first attempts going poorly. Can't wait to play with a few things like time cook, different shapes and adding things to the dough (herbs, squid ink, ect). And I really can't wait for the wife to go out of town and I can make real pasta with all of the gluten.

Made a run at ravioli this weekend. Did not go as well as the first run. Remember the key for me is gluten free. Since I liked the fettucine so much I used the same exact flour mix.

It extruded fine at first. With the attachment it comes out like a tube that isn't connected all the way. When I went to straighten it out the dough was breaking apart. I ran it back through extrusion only and cut it into smaller sheets. It worked a little better but still wouldn't flatten out well.

I also let the sheets sit out for about 30 minutes uncovered while I prepped the filling and other stuff. When I went to put the filling down and make the ravioli shapes, the dough wasn't forgiving at all. It was a bit dry and would break apart as you moved it. The end result was a bunch of stuff that was basically just pasta sheets held loosely together with a filling between. The filling was chopped mushroom and frozen spinach mixed with dairy free ricotta.

I decided to just go with it and boil it. Most of them came out fine but just didn't look like traditional ravioli. One or two came completely apart and many of them were falling apart. I basically ended up with piles of pasta and filling stuck together.

The good news is the taste was great. It didn't look good but it tasted wonderful. As I've said before, my biggest problem with gluten free is once it cools down from the original boil it becomes a dry and chalky product. I had a bunch of pieces of plain pasta that didn't make it to ravioli that I boiled. I ate this straight out of the fridge the next day and it was soft and chewy like pasta is supposed to be. That's a huge win for me. I can only imagine what using non gluten free products would produce (and one day I won't have to imagine). Clean up was easy again. A little light scrubbing takes care of most of it with more scraping needed for the discs that shape the pasta.

Long story short, my ravioli looked nothing like ravioli but tasted like really good ravioli. In the end I'll chalk it up as a minor success. Going forward I'll look for either a better recipe or a better process. After two cooks I'm a huge fan of this product. Next attempt will either be just a penne pasta or maybe using the lasagna sheets to make a faux cannelloni.