Making Ravioli with Kids

One of the funnest recipes to make with kids is fresh raviolis.

A few tips:

• Some kitchen supplies and equipment are useful but not absolutely required: plastic wrap and parchment paper is most helpful, a rolling machine and molds or stamps will make things easier but are not even recommended for your first attempts.
• Use a simple dough recipe.
• Somewhere to dry the pasta without stacking (stacked raviolis stay wet and stick together). Once the pasta is dry you can store it stacked over parchment paper, freeze it or use it immediately.
• Give yourself plenty of time for the two cups of flour recipe (below) which will make 48–64 small raviolis depending on how thin you roll the dough. Consider it 3–4 hours until meal time (with kid involvement it will be closer to 4 hours): mix and knead dough: 20 minutes, rest dough: 30 minutes, roll, cut and fill dough: 60 minutes, drying: 1 hour, cook 5 minutes.
• Make the pasta dough ahead of time, it will need to rest for at least 30 minutes and can keep for 24 hours in refrigerator. This is the messiest part and requires some kneading (which can be tough for kids), so do it before the kids get involved.
• Make a simple filling (cheese) and let the kids make it as the dough is resting. Once you start rolling pasta dough, anything that is not wrapped in plastic, will dry out faster than you can make more filling.
• Sauce is almost not required. Butter takes no time, oil and parsley takes even less time, red sauce is simple to make, white sauce is more difficult.

The Equipment

Clear plastic wrap is used for storing the pasta while it rests (and to prevent the stored dough from drying while you roll and cut a portion of it)

required: clear plastic wrap

Parchment paper for drying the raviolis. My father-in-law would use a clean bed-sheet as there was little room on the counters and tables in his small kitchen.

required: parchment paper

Less required is a pasta rolling machine. A rolling pin will suffice for adults but the dough is not as easy for kids to work with and the machine will roll the dough much thinner than you’ll be able to do by hand.

more than helpful: pasta maker

A dough scraper will make the mixing easier and help cleaning up the work area.

helpful: dough scraper

A ravioli mold is not least required. It’s fasters than a stamp as you make many raviolis at a time and they will be shaped perfectly, but you can cut the dough into squares by hand and fold it into triangles.

helpful: Ravioli mold

A stamp is also not required: The raviolis will look neat but a circular cookie cutter or a glass will work just fine.

helpful: ravioli stamp

The Dough Recipe

This recipe makes a ball of dough the size of a softball, you’ll cut this into four pieces and each piece should make between 8–24 raviolis depending on how thin you roll pasta and small you make the raviolis:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup semolina flour
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• tablespoons of water

Semolina makes the pasta a little rougher (less rubbery if you will) and easier to work with, but is not required, substitute all-purpose flour if that is simpler. More eggs will add additional binding, increase the color from off-white to to yellow and even orange (depending on the yolk color), you also won’t need to add water.

Make the dough ahead of time

Mix the ingredients on a flat surface. Use the scrape to help collect the dough. The dough may look more like dry breadcrumbs an not stick together into a ball: add water and/or another egg.

mix the dough on a flat surface

Knead the dough for five minutes until the dough is even and silky. Form it into a ball.

pasta dough is tough for kids to knead and roll, but it is fun

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes or in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours.

Mix the filling

Cheese filling is pretty easy

• 8 ounces ricotta
• 4 ounces cream cheese
• 4 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
• 4 ounces shredded parmesan cheese

and my son loves pumpkin filling

• 15 ounce can pumpkin puree (not pie filling!)
• 1 cup shredded parmesan cheese

pumpkin ravioli with just two ingredients (pumpkin puree and shredded parmesean cheese): kid approved

Roll the dough

Cut the ball of dough into four equal pieces, roll one piece out now, store the rest in plastic to keep them from drying out.

Using A Rolling Pin

Flour the work areas so the dough will not stick to it.

kids will have trouble rolling out pasta dough alone, team-work may be needed

Roll the dough out as thin as you can without tearing, fold it in half and rolling it out again as thin as possible.

With each fold you will be able to roll the dough out a little thinner without tearing it.

If the dough does tear, seal it with a touch of water (if necessary), fold it over and roll it out again.

Using a rolling machine

Rolling machines can be a bit touchy, some things to remember:

Multi-colored pasta is a little tricky, but doable: http://homecookinginmontana.blogspot.com/2009/02/homemade-multi-colored-pasta.html

• Lock the machine down to the countertop as tight as possible.
• Three kids can help: one to feed the pasta in, one to turn the crank, and one to hold the pasta as it is coming out of the machine.
• It is easier to feed dough into the machine if it is already rolled out a little, use a rolling pin to start things off.
• Hold the pasta machine down as the crank is turning, this will prevent the wing nut attaching the pasta machine to the counter-top from coming loose.
• Start with the machine at the widest rolling position, each time the dough moves through the machine narrow the rolling pins one notch.
• Every second notch or if the dough tears, fold the dough over and move it through the machine at the same notch level a second time.
• It is easier to work with pasta that is at the second to thinnest notch mark, advanced work will make the pasta almost tissue paper thin.
• You’ll need to pull the pasta away from the machine as it is being rolled out. Do not stretch-pull the pasta, just hold it away so the pasta does not fold up and stick together

When the dough is rolled out evenly to 1/16th of an inch, you are ready to cut.

Cut and fill the raviolis

Stamps, cookie cutters and cups

Using a stamp, cookie cutter or cup, cut the dough in to circles, fill them and fold them over.

pumpkin ravioli: use a cup to cut the pasta into consistent shapes

Use water between the two lips of the pasta at the fold point and fork the edges to seal the pasta

Fold the ravioli over to make a semi-circle, use a little water on your finger to seal the lip

cheese ravioli: press the edges of the semi-circle to seal the ravioli

Pasta molds

With a piece of rolled out pasta cut to fit over the mold, quickly fill the indentions with a small amount of filling.

Hint: It is sometimes easier for a kid to use two baby spoons instead of teaspoons and fingers

filling pumpkin ravioli using a mold

A multi-colored pasta dough made with loving care

Lay a second sheet of pasta over the top of the filled ravioli indentions and with your hands, work the air out of the ravioli (if there is any).

If there is a top piece of the mold, press it over the filled pasta to cut the ravioli pieces.

two piece molds press the top part to cut the raviolis

If the mold only has one have, use a rolling pin to press the two pasta sheets together and cut the raviolis.

Tortellini

Smaller cut circles, sealed in a similar way to the hand folded raviolis, pull the ends together and pinch the corners together: boom tortellini

hand made tortellini

Hand Cut Tagliatelle

If there is any pasta dough left ver, roll it out into a large sheet, flour it heavily as you fold it over three or four times.

hand-cut tagliatelle

With a sharp knife, slice across the fold and hang the pasta to dry.

drying hand-cut tagliatelle

A special attachment for pasta machines can be added to cut the pasta.

hand-made tagliatelle using the pasta machine attachment

If the rolled pasta drys out too fast consider cutting it into strip noodles

cut into noodles because the pasta dried before it could be formed into raviolis

Drying the pasta

Let the pasta dry for at least an hour (and maybe two) on parchment paper.

multi-colored raviolis

Cooking the pasta

1. boil water in a medium to large pot with with a teaspoon of salt
2. gently place ravioli in the boiling water
3. when the ravioli raises to the surface (2 minutes maximum), it is done