Flour Tortilla Recipe

July 7, 2024

This is a simple flour tortilla recipe that avoids using any sort of leavening agent. These leavening agents can cause leftover tortillas to turn hard overnight, and they’re not really needed. So I avoid them.

Ingredient Requirements

Makes about 11 50g tortillas.

  • 300g all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 200g boiling water
  • 3 tbsp unsalted butter

Preparation

Dry Mix

  • 300g all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp salt

Whisk the flour and salt together to combine and distribute the salt.

Scalding the Dough

  • 200g boiling water

Boil more than 200g of water and then add 200g of it to the dough, working quickly. We are attempting to scald the flour and denature the proteins in the flour. This only happens at 80C and up, so we want the hot water to touch as much flour as possible before it cools. This scald does two things for us. First, it allows us to get even more water into our dough, which will make our tortillas cook better and last longer. Second, it denatures the proteins, which will make the tortillas much easier to work and keep thin.

Add Butter

  • 3 tbsp unsalted butter

Slice the butter into smaller pieces and mix into the dough. There wasn’t enough water to properly hydrate the dough in the last step, but the water content of the butter will properly hydrate the dough. Knead until no more dry flour remains.

If you are opting to use lard or some other fat, make sure to account for this difference in water content in your version of the recipe.

Split Into Dough Balls

Split the dough into about 11 50g dough balls. I’ve found that this weight is ideal for my size of tortilla press. Scale to your preferred size. When all dough balls are made, wet a towel and cover the dough balls so they don’t dry out. We want to let this rest for ~20 minutes, so that the gluten that has been formed in the dough can relax. This will make the flattened tortillas less springy, and easier to work with.

Cooking

Preheat a cast iron skillet until it just starts to smoke. On my burners, this is medium to medium-high.

Press or roll out a tortilla to desired thin-ness. I usually do this between two “food service sheets” so that is lifts easily from the tortilla press. Slowly lay the tortilla on the skillet and watch until the tortilla changes color. Once it is mostly darkened, flip it. The tortilla should be developing some light browned spots, but mostly we are looking to “seal” that layer with an overall cook. The other side should could for roughly 30-45 seconds until we reach a similar level of done. Flip it back over to the first side and the tortilla should now begin to puff, now that both sides are “sealed.” Experiement with the method as you cook your tortillas. It’s often a cooking method that works better by feel than by time.

When tortillas are well browned and have puffed all they have to puff, store them in a tortilla holder or wrapped in a towel. This will allow them to steam themselves to finish cooking.

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