homemade tortillas

Mixing the oil into the flour

I tried making my own wheatflour tortillas the other night. We had leftovers, and not many of them, and I needed some way to make the same dinner over again look like a completely different dinner. Solution? Wrap it in a tortilla!

Personally I don't know how people roll them thinly enough to make them look like shop bought tortillas - mine ended up looking a lot more like naan bread once they were cooked. But that is not a bad thing. Naan is in fact very good.

Since it was my first attempt, I stuck to the recipe exactly - next time I'll use butter instead of oil and at least some wholemeal/wheatmeal flour in with it, perhaps up to 50/50.

As for the tools to use, you can use anything to mix the oil in - you don't have to use the nifty pastry cutter (or blender) that you see in my photo. I like to use it because it was my Mum's. It also spreads the oil through really evenly. I don't use it to mix the water in though - it just gets clogged up. That's when I switch to my wooden spoon.

I don't think I used quite enough water - they were not really soft enough to roll out easily. But be careful not to add too much. Soggy dough is a bit harder to correct.

Apparently these freeze well, but I'd probably need to triple the recipe to have any left to freeze.

Tortillas

2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons oil
about 3/4 cup warm water

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl (or food processor), add the oil and then slowly add enough warm water to form a soft dough. Knead on a floured board for about 5 minutes then allow the dough to rest.
Divide dough into 10 or so small balls and roll out thinly.
Cook them quickly in a greased, moderately hot pan for half a minute or so, until they bubble and start to brown. Turn and cook the other side.
Keep them in a damp tea-towel to keep soft and reheat in aluminium foil in the oven.