Homemade Flour Tortillas
Soft and fluffy flour tortillas are easy to make in your own kitchen and they taste so much better than the store bought varieties.
Equipment
- Rolling pin or tortilla press
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoons butter, room temperature
- ½ cup hot water
Instructions
- Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer, or any other large bowl.
- Add the softened butter and work it into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse sand. You could use a pastry cutter, but I like to use my fingers to really incorporate it.
- Gradually add the hot water, stirring until a shaggy dough forms.
- Using the dough hook on your kitchen mixer, knead the dough for about 5 minutes. Alternatively, you could do this by hand on a lightly floured work surface. Knead until you have a smooth ball of dough that is nice and elastic.
- Divide the dough into 8-10 equal portions and shape each piece into a ball.
- Cover the dough balls with a clean kitchen towel. Let them rest for at least 30 minutes, but up to several hours.
- Heat a large skillet or griddle over medium-high heat.
- On a lightly floured surface first, flatten the ball using the heel of your hand making a fairly round disc. Then use a rolling pin to roll out each dough ball into a thin, round tortilla, about 6-8 inches in diameter.
- Carefully transfer the tortilla to the hot skillet and cook for 30-60 seconds on each side, until lightly browned and puffy.
- Remove the tortilla from the skillet. Stack them in a tortilla warmer or a clean kitchen towel inside of a pan with a tight-fitting lid. Doing this will create steam which will ensure that your tortillas will be soft and pliable.
- Repeat with the remaining dough balls wiping out the pan with a wet paper towel if flour starts to accumulate.
- And that's it! Your homemade flour tortillas are now ready to be used in a variety of dishes.
Notes
Tips For Success:
- Let your dough rest for at least 30 minutes before trying to roll them out. If they shrink back when you try to roll them, that just means the gluten hasn't had enough time to relax. Let the dough sit for another 15 minutes or so and then try again.
- Roll the tortillas very thin. You want to be able to see through them when you are done.
- While working with the first tortilla, cover the remaining dough balls with a clean kitchen towel to keep them from drying out.
- Cook them in a HOT skillet! A cast-iron skillet works really well because it retains heat.
- If the tortillas feel stiff or brittle, that means you have cooked them too long. You just want to see a few air bubbles start to form on the surface and then flip. You should see a few golden brown spots.
- And last but not least, you want the tortillas to steam after taking them off of the heat. You can either put them in a tortilla warmer or wrap them in a clean kitchen towel inside of a pan with a tight-fitting lid. As you continue to add the hot tortillas, the steam inside the pan will build, making them nice and pliable.
- Making the tortillas perfectly round can be tricky, but the more you practice, the rounder they will become. They will taste just as good no matter what shape they are in!