Bread #17 Homemade Flour Tortillas

 

Good afternoon bread bakers.

One of my friends suggested I make homemade tortillas – and knowing that I could also build a meal around this bake, it seemed like a perfect idea.  I’ve never made tortillas before – so this is totally an experiment.  I searched the internet for recipes and found one that received consistently good reviews and picked that recipe.  It comes from Allrecipes.com 

Please bake Homemade Flour Tortillas with me.

Special Tools you will need

None

 
Just a few Ingredients:

Ingredients
4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 Tablespoons lard
1 ½ cups water

 

Make dough: Whisk the flour, salt and baking powder together in a large mixing bowl.  Mix in the lard with your fingers until the flour resembles cornmeal.  Add the water and mix until the dough comes together.  Place on a lightly floured surface and knead a few minutes until smooth and elastic.  (I did this in my Kitchenaid with the dough hook)

Divide and let rest:  Divide dough into 24 equal pieces and roll each into a ball.  Let rest 20 minutes under a damp cloth.

Roll and cook: Preheat a large skillet over medium-high heat (I used both my cast iron skillet and a regular skillet – both worked fine).  Lightly dust your counter with flour. Using a well-floured rolling pin, roll the dough ball into a thin, round (in my case round-ish) tortilla.   Place into the hot dry skillet and cook until bubbly and golden.  Flip and continue cooking until golden on the other side.  Wrap cooked tortilla in a clean, slightly damp towel.  If you don’t do this the first side will stay crunchy.  Continue rolling and cooking the remaining dough.

Storing and re-heating:  Wrap tightly and refrigerate leftovers or they will mold in a couple days.  I also froze some – not sure how they will fare.  You can reheat in a microwave for a few seconds or wrap them in foil and re-heat in a 350 degree oven.

Lovely stack of Tortillas!



Reflections on this bake:

So, these were a lot of work – especially with a make-shift kitchen in the basement where my rolling station was 11 steps away from my stove top where I cooked the tortillas.  I made 48 trips back and forth!  However, they were very tasty, soft and tender.  I had my work buddy who grew up in South America taste them and he thought the texture was good, but that they needed a little more fat.  There were definitely recipes out there with a higher ratio of lard to flour, so if I make them again (in a “real” kitchen), I will probably try one of those recipes. I also ended up liking the taste of the tortillas with charred spots, so I would probably cook them longer or at a higher heat.  Overall, I would say this was a success.  We had a great dinner of beef tortillas and homemade salsa.    

 

Rating Category	Rating out of 5
Taste	4
Texture	4
Likeliness to make again	3
Overall Rating	3.7