Fantasy Patterns: Freeform Decorative Pasta Dough

Cathrin Simon
2 days ago
2 min read

Updated: 9 hours ago

One of the simplest, most impressive ways to create patterned pasta dough is to let your creativity run freely, using thin strands of colored dough to decorate a plain sheet. There's no strict method here — it's one of the more playful techniques in this whole series.

Ingredients

Plain egg pasta dough, sheeted (your "canvas")
A contrasting colored dough (see our color methods guide), sheeted

Tools

Pasta machine with spaghetti attachment
Large wooden working board
Rolling pin
Extra semolina powder

Create your strands

Feed your colored dough through the pasta machine's spaghetti attachment, catching the strands with your hands as they come through. If they feel sticky or at risk of sticking to each other, a light dusting of semolina helps — but ideally you can just set them aside as they are.

Lay out your canvas

Place your plain sheeted dough at the center of your working board.

Decorate freely

Starting in one corner, begin layering the colored strands over the plain dough — looping and circling as you like, working to fill out the sheet. Every so often, press down gently with your palms to help set the pattern in place as you go.

Set the pattern

Once you're happy with the design, press down firmly with your palms across the whole sheet, then use a rolling pin very gently to press the strands down more securely.

Fix it with the pasta machine

Pick up your patterned sheet and feed it through the pasta machine, starting at setting 4 and then setting 5, to permanently fix the strands into the dough.

What to make with it

Cut this dough into pappardelle or fettuccine if you'd like, but this technique really shines with filled pasta — the pattern becomes the visual centerpiece of the dish. It works especially well for shapes like agnolotti del plin.