Homemade Flour Tortillas
Servings 16 tortillas
Ingredients
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp sea salt
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 1 cup filtered water
Instructions
- Measure out flour, salt and baking powder into a mixing bowl and whisk to combine.
- Add water and olive oil together on top of dry ingredients and stir with a fork or spatuala to combine into a rough dough ball.
- Remove dough from mixing bowl onto the counter and knead for 7 to 10 minutes or until you have a smooth ball that is not sticky. We keep a spray bottle handy to mist the dough if it seems dry at all before continuing to knead.
- Flatten the ball of dough slightly on the counter and cover with a damp cloth to prevent the surface from drying out while the dough rests for approximately 30 minutes.
- Use a bench scraper or knife to cut the flattend dough round into 8 equal wedges. Flatten each wedge into a smaller flattened ball and cut these in half so that you have 16 equally sized pieces of dough.
- Form each of the pieces of dough in to a disc by rolling and pressing between your flattened palms. This helps to ensure that when you roll out your tortillas or flatten them in a tortilla press, they are as round as possible. Cover the 16 flattened discs with the damp cloth while you prepare your skillet to cook them.
- We wipe our cast iron skillet with a paper towl with a very small amount of refined avocado oil. We use less than a ¼ tsp of oil on the paper and wipe the pan as though we were removing the oil from the pan. It is important to use an oil with a high smoke point as described in the blog, to prevent it from breaking down.
- Preheat the pan on medium high. All stoves and burners are different and, therefore, it make take some time to get the temperature as hot as possible without burning the oil. If it smokes, cool and wipe the pan clean and start again at a slightly lower setting. Once you have your setting, just remember it for the next time around.
- Use a tortilla press or a rolling pin to turn each disc into a thin 6 to 7" (15 to 18 cm) tortilla between two sheets of parchment paper. Peel one sheet off and place the tortilla, paper side up, into the hot pan, letting it cook for 10 seconds or so before carefully peeling off the paper and shifting the tortilla to ensure that it is not sticking. We find that the paper helps to prevent shrinkage.
- Cook each tortilla for about 45 seconds or until there are light brown spots on the underside. Flip and cook for another 30 to 45 seconds until there are light brown spots as for the first side. If your tortilla start to burn, reduce the heat slightly.
- Remove tortilla with a spatula to a damp towel and spritz lightly with a spray bottle before covering with cloth.
- Repeat the cooking process for all tortillas. We typically press or role the next tortilla while we keep and eye on the one cooking. Once you are done, they're ready to serve fresh.
- If you don't plan to use them straight away, you can let them cool before transferring them to a sealable reusable container and storing them in the fridge or freezer.
