Homemade Flour Tortillas!

We all love tortillas in this house, especially me! After having weight loss surgery (WLS) in 2010, it became hard for me to tolerate regular breads, so to get my carbs, and my sandwich craving fulfilled, I use wraps! 
I've purchased a lot of tortillas over the years, burrito style, soft taco, and "extra thick". Never ever did it occur to me to find my own recipe, and MAKE my own flour tortillas.

So, I found a recipe that I kinda liked, but I really didn't like that the fat/binder in it was shortening. Being that I has WLS, I sometimes have to look for the least evil ingredients to replace the most evil ingredients with. So I experimented! I tried variations of shortening and olive oil, and it just didn't taste good, and they were far drier than I wanted. Naturally, I wanted to try going with butter. Butter is my one true cooking love. I try to replace the worst fats with butter, because it's natural, and I never, ever use margarine. 
Butter was the magic ingredient!

So here's what I came up with! A delicious, melt in your mouth, makes just enough for today's dinner, and tomorrow's lunch- for a family of 3-4! 

3 cups of all purpose unbleached wheat flour. 
1/2 tbs Salt
1/2 tbs baking powder NOT SODA
2 Tbs Olive Oil- canola would work too, but we always have EVOO in our house
1 stick of softened butter-room temp
1.5 cups of boiling water. 


In a medium to large mixing bowl, or the bowl of your stand mixer, mix your dry ingredients. (If using a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment) 
Cut in the butter, a chunk at a time, it should get crumbly, then pull together to a thick ball.
Add in the Olive oil.

Once all the flour and fats have come together, add your boiling water a little at a time. It gets slightly sticky, and may not take all of the water.
When your dough has come together, make sure to cover and let it rest. Letting it rest to develop the gluten is crucial to the tortillas being tender and fluffy. 15 minutes is optimal resting time, can be more, but I don't suggest any less than 10. 

Flour your rolling board/counter top/wax paper, and remember to flour the rolling pin too! I found even a foot long section of 2" PVC pipe works awesome for rolling these too! Break off a ball of dough about 1.5" across for a decent size tortilla- just smaller than a golf ball. Pat a little flour on both sides, and roll it out. If you've eaten a tortilla before, you know just about how thick it needs to be. 
Once you've gotten it rolled out, you're ready to pan sear it.
Heat a good sturdy skillet, cast iron works best because it heats evenly, and do not oil or grease it. You don't want to deep fry your tortilla. 
Once the skillet is nice and hot, flop your tortilla in, and about 30 seconds on each side, twice will cook it through! 


I can't wait to see how yours turn out! Send me pictures!