Finally you have decided to use the pasta machine. Certainly, you can make fresh pasta with just a rolling pin but with the pasta machine you can at least give a final touch of precision.
The dough will come out smooth, precise beautiful and you can cut in the preferred shape.
But suddenly a problem. You begin to wonder if you have done everything wrong, if the dough was wrong, the ingredients put in the wrong order: none of this, many factors can affect our dough, but nothing is irreversible
Let’s see the most common problems you may encounter:
1)The dough has so many irregular hard spots here and there.
What happened: you left the dough too long without covering it and it dried a little bit.
What to do now: Let’s proceed rolling it out with the rolling pin.
2)The dough breaks a lot on the sides.
What happened : the dough was not thin enough for the setting you fixed on the machine(I mean the numbers on the side that regulates the thin of the dough)
What to do: Go back to the less thin setting and try again
3)The dough comes out well and thin out the machine but there is a long cut in the middle or on one side.
What happened: there is a small piece of dough in the machine. With the brush you can clean
What to do: problem solved but next time when using some extra flour on the table to knead the dough use always new flour, out of the package.
This is an example how small a piece of dough can be and damage your pasta
How to clean the pasta machine
DON’T WASH IT !!!
The easiest way to clean the pasta machine is to leave it several hours on the table until the dough is dry. When the dough is completely dry, beat it on the kitchen countertop. ( do not damage the countertop, be delicate) The dough will come off on its own.
First you remove all the residues of flour and dough, you can help yourself with a kitchen skewer and an old brush with not too soft bristles
Remove the residues from the rollers. Insert the knob, turn it and gradually with the brush remove all the flour. Do this procedure more times, so you achieve a perfect cleaning of the pasta machine.
Rotate the machine and clean the rollers even from behind, insist on finishing and joints, where flour residues are deposited the most.
Clean well again with the brush and remove the residues, slightly beating the dough machine on top of the table.
And now make more pasta. Please, get in touch if you have any question about the pasta machine.
Toscana Mia 