Flour Tortillas

At last! It appears to be BBQ weather, and whilst I’m stuck for Father’s Day ideas I figured a BBQ might be just the thing to treat your Dad. Now BBQ’s don’t naturally lend themselves to baking but a batch of these flour tortillas will certainly go down a treat.

This is early morning baking while the weather is hot, get up early and make a batch then turn off the heat and go and enjoy the sunshine!

Ingredients:

235g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

35g lard or vegetable fat (Trex)

125 – 140ml water

Make 8.

(My pics show a double batch of 16, but I figured you probably don’t need 16 flour tortillas! Don’t let the photos confuse you)

Easiest way to make this dough is in the food processor, but if you don’t have one a large bowl will just as well do the trick – it’s very much the same as making a pastry.

Place the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl of the processor and blitz to mix.

Add the lard or vegetable fat in small chunks and blitz together until the fat is rubbed in and the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Now with the processor running start to add the water, I’ve given a guideline in the quantities but because different flours absorb water at different rates you may need less, or more. Add enough so that the mixture comes together into a dough, a little on the sticky side.

Transfer the dough to a bowl, and knead it gently in the bowl until it is smoother. throw a clean tea towel over it and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Once its rested, split the dough into 8 equal-ish pieces. If you’re finding it too sticky lightly dust your hands with a little flour.

Flatten each one out in the palm of your hand, then turn the edges into the middle to form a ball.

Give it a quick roll round in your hands to smooth the ball shape and then pop it back in the bowl.

Once you’ve rolled all 8 into balls. It’s time to start rolling out and shaping those tortillas, work on 3-4 tortillas at the same time. You need to keep your surface lightly floured to stop them from sticking.

Roll out each tortilla just a little bit, starting to shape them into a round.

Go back over each tortilla and roll out a little bit more.

Keep going like this, working on each of your batch in turn. This gives the dough chance to rest between each stage and makes it tons easier to roll than attempting to roll it out full size in one fell swoop.

You’re aiming for round and thin, I haven’t mastered the perfect round yet but noone seems to mind;)

Once you have your batch of tortillas rolled out and ready to go, heat up a good non-stick frying pan, nice and hot and you don’t need any oil or butter in the pan.

In goes the first tortilla, it should start to change colour and air bubbles puff up across it.

30 seconds in the pan and then flip it over.

You’re aiming for light golden spots where the air bubbles are. Don’t overcook them or they form a hard crust that cracks.

Once you’ve cooked both sides, set them onto a plate inside a clean teatowel and on with cooking the rest. Keep them covered inside the teatowels (you will need at least 3).

Cover the whole lot with a last teat towel to keep the air from them.

Please be careful when you come to shape the next batch, take the pan off the heat until you’re ready to cook again.

They are perfect to use right away whilst still warm, or you can allow them to cool fully and put them in a freezer bag or wrap well in clingfilm until you need them. Warm them up just before serving, so they are fully flexible – 10 seconds in the microwave.

They will keep well in the fridge for 3 days, but they do need to be in the fridge. They don’t seem to do so well frozen once they’re cooked but you can freeze the balls of dough before rolling if you’d like.