Homemade Flour Tortillas.

I finally did it.  I made some tortillas!  I had been wanting to do it for so long, but I thought it would be too hard and that I would totally mess it up.  But I only messed up ONE of the twelve tortillas the recipe made.  Holla!  I found the recipe here.  I have found a couple of different tortilla recipes on Pinterest I want to try, just to see the difference and decide which I like better.  And which one Andrew likes better.  He's so picky sometimes.

Flour Tortillas

- 3/4 cup whole wheat flour

- 2 cups all-purpose flour

- 5 Tbsp. lard (I used shortening)

- 3/4 tsp. salt

- 3/4 cup warm water

1. Combine the flours in a bowl and stir until evenly mixed.  Add the lard (or shortening) and work it in with your hands until the flour is coated in lard and you have an even, crumbly mixture.

2. Dissolve the salt in the warm water.  Add the salt water to the flour/lard mixture a little at a time until a cohesive ball is formed.  You may need more or less water depending on the moisture content of your flour.

3. Once you have a rough ball of dough, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for a minute or two, until everything is evenly mixed.  The dough will be fairly stiff and quite unlike regular bread dough, so don't worry if it is difficult to knead.

4. Divide the dough into 8 pieces (for large tortillas) or 12 pieces (smaller, 6 inch tortillas).  Do your best to shape them into balls and let them sit for 30 minutes, covered with a damp towel.

5. After the dough has rested it will be much softer and easier to roll out.  Roll each ball into a very thin circle, about the thickness of poster board.  You can pile the rolled tortillas one on top of the other until you are finished rolling them all.

6. Heat a heavy bottomed skillet over a medium flame.  Once the pan is fully preheated, place one tortilla in at a time.  Wait for it to bubble up and turn slightly golden then flip and cook the second side the same way (about 30 seconds each side).  As each tortilla comes out of the skillet, pile them on a plate and cover with a damp towel to keep soft and warm.  

All rolled out and ready for cookin'!

Finished product.

Tada!  The blog this recipe is from is really neat and she has so many other recipes I want to try.  She even breaks down the price of each recipe and includes step by step pictures, which is SO helpful sometimes.

As for how my tortillas turned out... they were awesome!  Well, what I mean by that is that it actually worked.  Andrew and I didn't particularly like the flavor of the wheat flour, but I could easily get over that.  Andrew, on the other hand, really doesn't like that stuff.  Like I said, he can be so picky sometimes.  He won't even touch whole wheat pasta, that's how much he doesn't like wheat-anything.  

The first tortilla I cooked didn't turn quite as well, but that's because I hadn't rolled them out thin enough.  So I had to re-roll them all, which worked out fine, and I'm glad I did.  I do need to work on my rolling pin skills though... making a circle is hard with those things!