My First Tortillas

As you may know, I am a Mexican food lover. A few weeks ago my hubby purchased a tortilladora for me. It's basically a tortilla press. Today we went to El Rey in search of some steak carnitas and a comal. A comal is plate type of cookware that you can cook the tortillas on. Kind of like a griddle.

After coming back from the store, I tried my hand at making some tortillas. The dough was pretty simple. The difficult part is pressing them thin enough. The baking powder makes them rise too. I had a few bad ones but finally got a hang of it. This recipe says it makes 24 balls of dough but really it takes two balls together to make one tortilla. I ended up with 12 tortillas.

Note: If you don't have a tortilladora, use a rolling pin to make the tortillas.

Flour Tortillas

4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 TBSP lard
1 1/2 cup water
cooking spray
plastic wrap

In a large bowl mix the flour, baking powder, and salt together. I used a pastry cutter to cut the lard into the flour. You will have little granules. Then add the water. Here's the sticky part. Use one hand to mix the dough. It will be very elastic. Once it's all incorporated, flour your hands and make medium sized balls like meatball shape and place on a baking sheet.

Once made spray you tortilladora with cooking spray and begin pressing out the dough. I had to press down 3-4 times until the dough was thin enough.  It helps if you have one person pressing out the dough and the other manning the stove. Set the heat on the stove to medium and begin browning the tortillas. They cook about 2 minutes per side or until no longer doughy.

Serve warm or place in a tortilla warmer until serving.