I read such divided opinion on the need to use special flour to make pasta, so I thought I'd test it out for myself. The recipe I used was identical in all cases, and so was the amount of time (9 minutes) that I spent on the kneading.
I tested the pasta with three types of flour:
All-purpose flour (known as "plain" flour in the UK)
Semolina flour
'00' flour
All three types of pasta flour are readily available at my regular grocery store.
What did I find?
The '00' flour was driest and hardest to work to a smooth dough.
The semolina flour felt really gritty for the first 3 minutes kneading, but the gritty texture was kneaded out.
The all-purpose flour was significantly easier to work with than either of the other flours
The all-purpose flour was cheaper than the other flours
The semolina flour stuck in the pasta maker, worse than the others
The all-purpose flour pasta cooked in less time (by 1.5 minutes) than the others
Recommendation: Personally, I won't bother buying special flours next time, but will be very happy with the results from all-purpose flour.
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