Flour Tortillas

Flour tortillas.  Are they worth the trouble to make when one can so easily buy a package of them at the store?  In one word: YES!  Homemade tortillas are far superior in taste.  Not to mention, you eliminate all of the chemicals and preservatives found in store-purchased tortillas.  No long list of ingredients to read through, just 4 simple ingredients you are sure to have in your home.  Flour, salt, butter, and water.  Doesn't get much easier than that!


5 cups of flour (you can mix and match all-purpose with whole wheat to the proportions you like)
1/2 c. butter
2 tsp. salt
1 & 1/2 cups of boiling water

I have 10 cups of flour in my big white bowl and all the other ingredients are doubled as well.

A big bowl of flour (and salt) with squares of butter seems to be a common theme in my cooking!

Cut the butter into the flour and salt mixture until the butter seems to disappear.

Make a well in the center of the flour and pour the boiling water in.

Start off by stirring the water in with a spoon.  The dough is very sticky at first, and it can easily burn you if you were to try mixing it with your hands.

The dough will look rather lumpy in the beginning.

Once the mixture has cooled a bit, roll up your sleeves and start kneading the dough until no dry areas remain.

Until eventually you are left with a nice, smooth, elastic dough.

Place the dough on your work surface.

Take your dough and separate it into golf-ball sized lumps.  Use bigger lumps if you want burrito size tortillas, smaller lumps for taco size tortillas.  I always prefer the larger tortillas for our family.

Cover the balls of dough with plastic wrap and allow them to rest for at least an hour.  This way they will roll out further and more easily.

There are 2 ways to make your tortillas.  If you like the smaller sized tortillas, a tortilla press is the way to go.  Simply place your ball of dough inside the 2 cast-iron plates and press the lever down.

For the larger size tortillas, I've found that using the rolling pin gives me the greatest success.  Not only does it make larger tortillas, but it can also give you a nice ab workout, depending on how many tortillas you have to roll out! ;)

Just for fun, I chose one dough ball and immediately rolled it out to see how big it got, and an hour later I re-rolled it to see if the results would change from allowing it to rest.  See the results for yourself!

First time rolling it out:

About 8" across and 9" up and down.

Second time rolling it out:

This time it rolled out to about 10" by 10."

If you're rolling it out like I do, I find the best technique is to roll it flat, flip it over and roll it again, and repeat one or two more times.  Each time the dough seems to roll out just a little bit further.  I roll them very thin; they puff up a little bit when you cook them.

Next, you want to heat up a skillet of some kind, spraying it with a quick blast of a non-stick spray.  Once it has heated, place the tortilla on the skillet and allow it to cook for a short while.  Typically at low/medium heat the first side is done after about 30 seconds.  Then flip the tortilla and allow the other side to cook for about 10-15 seconds.  The tortillas should start to turn a little brown and bubbly.

While one tortilla is cooking, I quickly roll out the next one to be put in its place once it is ready.  Yes, it can be a bit tedious, but again, the end result is so worth it!

I stack all the cooked tortillas on a plate where they stay warm for a good long time.  (At this point, if you are making extras and want to freeze them, this is the time to do it.  Make sure you place a piece of wax paper between each tortilla and then seal them tightly in a plastic bag, such as a Ziploc.)

Here is my stack of tortillas, all ready to go!

I used them tonight for a chicken taco dinner:

Go ahead and serve these up with your favorite fillings.  You are not limited to tacos--chicken salad or egg salad tastes great, as does peanut butter (the kids love "spiral sandwiches" for lunch), or even spread some melted butter across the top, sprinkle cinnamon sugar on that, and bake for a few minutes for a sweet treat.