Customer Reviews

Viante CUC-25PM Electric Pasta Maker with 9 Interchangeable Discs

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I have this pasta machine and just love it. To have success, you must follow directions when making the dough. If it is too dry or too wet it will not extrude properly. There are steps to correct the dough consistency. I flavor my pasta with different spices like saffron, dill, basil. Pasta flavored with Old Bay goes well with seafood, and Lemon Pepper is good with Chicken. Clean up is easy if you allow the dough to dry in the machine and disk. Then just wipe it out. I recommend handwashing the parts. The front looks like metal, but it is silver colored plastic. You can also use different types of flour to make the pasta: You can make your own whole wheat or gluten free pasta, or rice noodles, using rice flour. I recommend "The Pasta Machine Cookbook" for some wonderful recipes. I plan on making beef stroganoff and have either tagliatelle or pappardelle with it. If you follow directions you will get good results. You must also read the directions when you disassemble and reassemble the parts.

I was a bit reluctant to purchase this due to some of the negative reviews, but I am quite glad that I did. The pasta is outstanding, the packing was fine...but where is the warranty?

There really are two aspects to making great pasta, the first being is the machine capable of doing the job? The answer is resoundingly, "yes".

As noted, while the machine looks aesthetically pleasing, much of it is made of plastic. However, the critical parts are made of metal. Surely, if I dropped it, something would break....but so would most appliances. The machine is simple to break down and put back together and the instructions are quite clear on this. Yes, it does make some noise, but folks, it is a mixer and requires a motor. The motor is powerful enough to do the job.

The real art of making great pasta is getting the consistency of the dough correct. This applies to this machine or any other method of making pasta dough. The manual provides a picture which shows what the dough should look like. With the dough at the proper consistency, the extrusion process takes about 20 minutes. It may sound long, but if you are cutting and drying the pasta on a rack, that is about all of the time you have before you are ready to cut again.

Some tips on making the dough:
1. Whisk the flour in a bowl prior to measuring. Add it into the measuring cup with a large spoon and then level it with a knife. Do not pack it down
2. Mix all of the liquid ingredients with a whisk prior to adding it to the flour.
3. Let the machine mix the ingredients for at least 3 minutes before deciding on the need to add water. Add the water a bit at a time and let the machine mix it for several minutes before deciding on adding more. If you add too much water and have dough that looks like golf balls, stop the machine and break the dough down into tiny pea sized pieces. Then add a tablespoon of flour before starting the mixing process again. You may need to repeat this process a few times if there is too much water.

The recipes should be regarded as guidelines, I have yet to make perfect pasta just by the recipe alone. The amount of moisture needed is quite variable due to a lot of other factors (home humidity, moisture content of the flour, not all eggs are the exact same size, etc). Have some patience, let the machine due the work, and be judicious in adding extra liquid a little bit at a time.

Clean up is a simple matter. I have tried the "let it dry overnight" method as well as the "clean it right now". I find that cleaning the washable parts is easier when the dough is still moist. The disc is easier to clean when it is fully dried and the dried dough pops right out with the cleaning tool.

Viante CUC-25PM Electric Pasta Maker with 9 Interchangeable Discs
Making pasta with the Viante Pasta Maker couldn't be easier. Easy to operate and in thirty minutes or less, the job is done.
Clean up is a breeze, whether washing by hand or in the dishwasher. The machine comes with a nice selection of discs, different shapes and sizes of your favorite pasta.

This little machine made the best pasta we have ever tasted. It took about 20 minutes for it to knead and extrude nearly a pound of fettucine. We spent about 5 minutes soaking-time for the fettucine disk before putting it and the mixing chamber into the dishwasher. Yes, it takes a bit of practice to decide what length to cut the pasta...and we did a new version of "Lucy & Ethel" because we forgot to plan for Step 2 (what to do with the pasta when you cut it...especially since you see the next batch creeping out)...but the 2nd time, everything went perfectly. We used the basic recipe included in the instruction booklet and served Fettucine Alfredo as a side for Christmas and stole the show from the turkey. Then, our son (who ran off with the left-overs) called to say that when he reheated it for lunch the next day, he just added a little milk and the pasta was as fresh and al dente as the previous day...unlike the sticky mess you often get when traditional dry pasta is reheated. We were a little fearful because of the 1 low rating below...but we quickly discovered the problem was with the impatience of the reviewer, not the Viante.

I recently purchased this pasta maker, and on both ocassions that I tried making pasta in it this machine failed miserably. Even though I followed instructions exactly as they were written, not once could I even get the flour to form in the little sizes as required for this machine. Just about all of the negative comments from other reviewers, were what I experienced, too, in trying to make pasta in this machine. This machine, is now on it's way back to Amazon for a refund; and, I have already purchased (again, from Amazon) a replacement pasta machine of another Brand/manufacturer that I should have in the next few days. Hopefully, this subsequent Brand/manufacturer machine I just purchased will work properly, or as some other reviewers have said, these machines are not yet ready for mainstream consumer use and marketing to us, in the first place. And, yes, for me the Viante pasta maker, is a big mess to clean, as other reviewers have stated too. Still, my major problem with this Viante Pasta Maker, is that I couldn't get it to make any pasta at all.

The device worked for about 10 seconds before it began to make loud clicking noises. The kind of clicking noises you would hear when a motor is stuck on something. The sides would also bulge in and out. We tried to take it apart by removing the slider and pressing on the release button except the mixing chamber was jammed in pretty tight. 3 people could not remove it.

The instructions also appear to be translated from another language.

Worthless product.

This unit is garbage. Spend your money on something that works. It's a pain to clean, it has a weak motor, and it has cheap plastic parts. Honestly, you're better off with a manual maker than this thing. The motor burnt out on mine, and because of the poor design, the pasta sticks together and ends up rubber, if by some miracle you actually end up with pasta.

My husband bought this for me and we returned it. It took forever for it to extrude the pasta. It was very loud. Plastic parts looked like they would break very easily. Hard to clean. It was just a hassle and I would never recommend it to anyone.

Never having made pasta before, it helped tremendously to watch the video to see how this pasta maker performs. It was as easy as it looked. The directions were easy to follow. The extrusion went smoothly but slowly. Have patience. This is not a time saving device but it does make delicious pasta that will wow your family or friends.

We were really excited to use this pasta machine but it is a total heap of steaming junk. It only mixed dough for about 30 seconds before it stopped mixing and started making a funky noise. We tried and tried and tried to help it along but it is clearly a terrible product. Seriously DO NOT BUY THIS. It is poorly made and I'm shocked the company released the product for people to purchase.