Ok, before I type up mine and Regan’s adventure with homemade pasta, let me just get it out the way… Pasta generally for us and I’m sure many others, is a quick mid-week tea/dinner and knocking up homemade pasta is generally an unnecessary step too far, especially with the mass variety of dried and ‘fresh’ pasta available in the shops.

However, ‘bread with dad’ is about having fun in the kitchen and giving Regan skills that may (or may not) be useful in her adult life, AND homemade pasta does taste extremely nice and the Fettuccine “little ribbons” we make are great to go with a homemade ragù or a simple arrabbiata.

For this pasta, we had a little extra help, with Regan bringing home ‘Paddington Bear’ from school for an adventure her class can talk about next week, and whilst he didn’t get his ‘hands dirty’ he did sit nicely observing the method.

Ingredients: 300g of ’00’ flour; 3 medium eggs; 1 egg yolk from a 4th egg; a pinch of salt.

Method: After weighing out the ’00’ flour we empty carefully on to a clean work surface and make a well in the middle. We then add the 3 whole eggs and an extra egg yolk in to the centre, and add a pinch of salt.

With two forks, gently mix the eggs together and start to bring the flour into the centre and mix in to the eggs. Keep doing this until the pasta dough looks ready to get your hands in.

Dust your hands lightly with the ’00’ flour and start to knead the dough. We’re going to knead the pasta dough for around 10 mins, so Regan and I take it in turns, Regan doing a superficial job of folding and kneading, whilst Dad does the heavy kneading. As we knead, it becomes easier and Regan can get some pressure on the kneading process, but in the early stages it’s hard going versus making bread dough!

Once kneaded, we wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for around 30 minutes.

Now, to make the Fettuccine… We use a pasta machine. an inexpensive one which works well, but you can choose bigger and better ones.

Starting on the the largest setting we put through the machine, 10 times, folding and putting back through, before reducing the settings one by one until we have the required thickness of pasta dough.

Because we are making Fettuccine we start to cut the dough in to lengths once the dough gets thinner, and because if we didn’t the past dough would be the length of our kitchen! We try and keep the length of the pasta dough to 30cm, so keep cutting when the dough passes that length. You don’t need to do this, but it makes it easier to handle, especially for a 5 year old and her Dad. You can keep lightly dusting the dough with the ’00’ flour to stop it sticking.

Once thin enough, we are ready to put it through the cutter, to make the tiny ribbons. Passing it through the machine cutters is straightforward and Regan likes to wind the machine handle whilst I guide the ribbons and toss them gently in the ’00’ flour.

Because we are going to use the Fettuccine straightaway, we just lay a damp tea towel over the ribbons to stop drying out. They’re only going to take 2-3 minutes to cook in boiling water, so once your ragù or a simple arrabbiata is ready you can cook the pasta, toss through the sauce and serve.

We serve with our homemade garlic bread and homemade garlic butter.

Paddington however, decided on Marmalade Sandwiches and not our Fettuccine! He needs to be more adventurous with his diet!!