CucinaPro 178 Fresh Pasta Set
|
List Price: Our Price: $66.99 You Save: $3.00 (4%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $59.95 (click here) Category: Kitchen See more product details |
|---|
Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of CucinaPro 178 Fresh Pasta Set
Customer Review: Good kitchen tool for moderate use
Summary: 3 Stars
I am not a pasta making connoisseur, and can not give you a comparison to other pasta makers. This pasta making set has been used now about 6 times in my kitchen. My daughter lovers to make her own pasta. Construction seems solid, though some of the materials may be of less than top quality (one of the exterior screws seemed to be rusty or coated with some sort of rust like material). But the food surfaces looked fine. My one real complaint is that the crank handle is constantly falling out of it's shaft hole. The handle is meant to be removable, but there is nothing in the design to keep it from falling off if it is just lightly touch from below (which removes the friction holding it in place). It is more a silly annoyance than any real problem. The handle will end up dropping on the floor 4 or 5 times during a pasta making session (unhurt). It behaves properly when grasped firmly and is in use. The ravioli maker will be the hardest to use. It requires full, even width sheets of dough. And applying the filling in a rather tight space is a bit tricky. I think the manual flat ravioli templates would work better. It does come with a roller cutting tool to cut the dough strips to the correct width.
It did not come with any instructions at all! Not that you really need them, if you know how to make pasta dough. And the box seemed a bit old, like this is an excess of some large production run that needs to be moved, thus the really good price.
Perfectly serviceable and fun for light use.
Customer Review: Great Product!
Summary: 5 Stars
My original machine broke (my fault). Don't let your pasta get too dry, and of course I cranked the handle and warped the rolling mechansim. There is no easier way to roll out pasta and definately forget about the old "Rolling Pin" method. I bought this machine due to the fact that I like making ravioli and since my old machine broke and I was using a ravi cutter to hand crimp the pillows, when I was in the market for a replacement, I saw that villaware made one that included a 2inch ravi maker. I have priced the 1 inch ravi maker as a add on to my old machine at kitchen stores and it was more than 1/2 the cost of this entire purchase. I can not think of a more fun way to make dinner. If you like pasta, if you like cooking, you'll surely be starving by the time you make all that fresh cut noodles and ravioli. I read on the Villaware site that if you buy the motorized add-on that replaces the crank mechanism that you no longer need to use the mounting hardware to secure the unit to your workspace. However, the motor is very expensive (more than this unit) so I'll keep getting some excercise for my arm until maybe Santa will see what a good boy I've been this year. :-)
If you decide to buy this product, ENJOY!
Customer Review: GREAT PRODUCT!
Summary: 5 Stars
After reading reveiews of this product I was a little reluctant to order it. However, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of this product, it far surpassed my expectations. It was larger than I expected, heavier and sturdier too. I have never used or owned a pasta machine before. I took it out of the box, clamped it down to the counter. After mixing the dough I cranked it through the pasta machine. It was so easy! The only tiny inconveinence was finding through trial and error (this only took a minute to figure out) you must START at setting 7 and work to 1. But other than that I LOVE this machine. I made Fettucini Alfredo for Sunday dinner and everyone loved it! I can't wait to try the ravioli and spaghetti attachments. I also plan to use it to make my own whole wheat crackers. I love the fact that I can now make whole grain fresh pasta and control the quality ingredients: no additives, preservatives, coloring, egg whites instead of egg yolks, and the amount of sodium.
I researched and priced other pasta machines for sale on the internet and this one, at this price with the attachments, is a GREAT buy!
Customer Review: I love it!
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a great little pasta cutting machine. It has options for spagetti, lasagna, fettucini, and a thinner version of fettucini. It is good to let a "throw away" dough through it several times before actual use to get the machine oil out of it. There are two small problems with it, the least problem that the ravioli cutter part doesn't cut. The other problem is that when I let the dough through the fettuccini cutter only every other strain of pasta is getting cut through thouroughly the rest has to be separated by hand. It's a little time consuming.
Other than that I love this machine! I found that a 50% semolina and 50% bread flour mix gives the best texture and flavor. There are also no instructions for assembly or use but, it's pretty simple anyways. The only thing would be useful if they let the users know that the dough should be flattened with a rolling pin first to a 1/4-1/2 inch thickness, and after that let through the machine multiple times starting from the largest number: 7 all the way through 4 (I found that 4 is a good average thickness and doesnt get ripped easily).
Customer Review: Spare parts
Summary: 1 Stars
I purchased this product to replace the Al Dente 178 Pasta maker that I had used to the point that it had worn out. After I started to use the CucinaPro, I started to notice little flecks of metal showing up in my pasta sheets. Upon further inspection, I found that the plating used on the rollers themselves was peeling off. I fixed this problem by simply running some 'sticky' pasta dough (about 4 lbs. worth) through the machine. The rest of the plating did indeed peel off of the rollers. On the very next batch of dough I tried to roll out, the rollers started acting like the gears were not meshing until finally the secondary roller (the one not directly attached to the handle) stopped rolling entirely. I then proceeded to tear into the CucinaPro to see if I could find the problem. The gears were indeed not meshing properly and had already broke the end of a gear tooth off of the secondary gear, rendering the machine useless. On the bright side, I was able to salvage enough parts from the CucinaPro to repair the Al Dente that I originally had.