I just love this candy-shaped pasta or caramelle, they are so super cute, so fun to make and you can get creative with the filling. The color combo is so pretty, almost too pretty to eat.

Ingredients for the spinach pasta dough:

150g flour 00 type

150g semolina

100g baby spinach

a pinch of salt

Ingredients for the beet filling:

500g ricotta

some of the beet mixture, see below

salt, pepper

For the beet dough, the quantities are the same, instead of spinach use beets from a jar or can, blitz them, add a bit of can liquid and use about 150g of the beet mix. Mix the two types of flour and salt. For the spinach dough bring a big pot of water to a boil then cook the spinach in the water for about 1 min, strain and then blitz the spinach in a food processor with a bit of water until you get a smooth, creamy consistency, you should have around 150g of blended spinach. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture, add the blended spinach and slowly incorporate the flour until you get a compact dough. Knead it by hand or by a stand mixer with a hook for about 10 min or until smooth. If the dough is too dry add a bit of water, if it’s too wet add more flour. Wrap it in foil and put it in the fridge for about 30 min.

Using your pasta machine make thin pasta dough, is best to work in small batches, I usually split my original dough in 2 or 3 parts. Make tagliatelle or spaghetti out of one dough, brush the other dough with a bit of water and arrange the tagliatelle diagonally, trim the edges, work it with your pasta machine once more.

For the beet filling use 500g of ricotta and some of the beet mixture, make sure you drain as much liquid out of it as possible, and season with salt, pepper and any other spices. Shape the pasta as in the video here and cook them in salty simmering water for 2 minutes.

Make a quick sauce out of butter, depending on the number of portions use somewhere between 50-100g butter, let it cook on low heat, and swirl it from time to time until it gets a beautiful brown color and it smells nutty. Add it on the top of your freshly cooked pasta with plenty of fresh pepper and fresh basil. Enjoy!