Make your own… Tortillas
Categories: Bread, Food Prices, Make your own..., Rants, Recipes
Written By: Leanne Cordingley
I can’t believe it! I feel as if I have been being robbed, lied to and generally deceived. It’s a conspiracy. They know what they are doing and they do it anyway. I wonder how they thought they’d ever get away with it? Maybe I’m to blame. Maybe we’re all to blame. Who knows? But what is for sure is that it won’t be happening anymore.
What what what? What has happened?
What happened was this. Today we mixed some plain flour and some water in a bowl, kneaded it a bit, left it a bit, rolled it out and dry fried it. And you know what happened? We made lovely, fresh, soft, tasty tortillas. It was easy. AND they tasted REALLY nice. I’m MAD.
£1.69 it is for a pack of 6 Old El Paso tortillas. £1.69!!!!!
It cost us about 25p to make the same amount. GRRRR.
How can this have happened? At what point did we become so insecure of our cooking/baking skills and so dependent on other people making things to sell to us that someone worked out they would be able to sell something to us that is so cheap and easy to make yourself.
Seriously it would take more effort to walk to the shop to buy some. It’s almost like someone convincing people to buy water when everyone knows it comes out of the tap. Oh…
Well anyway, I’ve worked it out! Ha! You won’t get me anymore. And what’s more I’m going to make it my mission to tell everyone else too. You won’t get away with this for much longer.
If the ‘cheap’ and ‘easy’ tags don’t draw you in, check out this list of ingredients:
INGREDIENTS:
Wheat Flour, Water, Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, Stabiliser: Glycerol, Salt, Raising Agents: E450a, E500, Dextrose, Emulsifier: E471, Preservative: E202, Flour Treatment Agent: E920
Mutant food!
I don’t even know what most of that stuff is! I reckon they could release a batch with deadly poisons listed in the ingredients and no one would pick it up. Glycerol?? Do I want to eat that? Really? I have no idea? It sounds like an explosive. And numbers, lots of numbers. I don’t want to eat numbers. I want to eat food.
Here is the list of ingredients you need to MAKE YOUR OWN TORTILLAS. Hurrah!
Makes 8
250g plain white flour (plus extra for rolling out)
2g salt
150ml water.
So easy it’s hardly worth writing a proper recipe, but I’ll tell you once and then you’ll be off.
Put the flour in a bowl. Gradually add the water mixing it around with your fingers until you bring it together in a ball.
Knead for a few minutes.
Cover and leave to rest for about half an hour.
Divide in to 8 pieces, gently shape in to a rough ball and then roll out to about 2 or 3mm. While you are doing this put a good frying pan on a medium heat to heat up (no oil).
When the pan is hot put a tortilla in the pan, watch as it starts to bubble slightly as the underneath starts to brown (approx 30 seconds) then flip over and cook for another 30 seconds.
Stack them up as you cook them in a dry tea towel to keep them warm (the steam of the stacked warm tortillas keeps them soft).
Eat straight away, or wrap in tin foil to eat later (can be reheated later wrapped in foil in a low oven).
That’s it! And this recipe somehow still makes it seem more complicated than it really is. Honest.
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- flour, water, salt
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- flour and salt in bowl
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- mix in water
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- bring dough together
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- empty onto surface
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- knead for a few mins
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- kneaded dough
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- divide into 8
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- roll out to 2-3mm
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- dry fry 30s
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- nachos!
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- lovely wrap!
A couple of other revelations:
Chapattis are made in much the same way, only use wholemeal or chapatti flour!
Nachos are basically tortillas cut up and deep fried. Officially they should be made with cornflour, but we gave it a go with plain and they made an equally good snack. Bit of salt, bit of spice shaking and you’re there.
What will I ‘discover’ next? Can you really make your own pasta? noodles? pizzas? soup? Of course you can. I’m onto you. I’m going to get my revenge… watch this space.
Please let me know if you read this and then make your own tortillas.
New tortilla makers count as of 7th July 2009: 9
See more “make your own…” posts
July 6th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
I agree. This is really amazing and they taste so much better than the plastic, packaged, expensive shop brands. I’m also gutted I’ve spent years eating the latter ones also.
July 7th, 2009 at 9:26 am
Your recipe says plain flour but your picture shows bread (strong) flour.
Sorry to be a pedant but they are not the same thing!
But…does it make a difference??? Can you make tortillas with ‘normal’ plain flour?
(For the record I did used to make my own chapattis a long time ago and as you say it is really easy. You have inspired me to give it another go!)
July 7th, 2009 at 10:09 am
Eeek! You caught me out.
To be honest I’m not too good at sticking to recipes which is why I tend to leave the baking and bread making to hand model Andy who is much better at doing things as they should be done.
So really the answer to your question is we used strong flour to make it this time, they were very good. But this is the only time we’ve made them, so actually haven’t tried it with ‘normal’ plain flour (which the original recipe used). I suggest you just give it a go. From our experiments with this type of bread (chapattis, tortilla etc) it seems to matter less what you actually do and more just that you do it. They don’t seem to be able to go ‘wrong’.
I’m sure bread making purists would disagree, but there you go.
July 7th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Yeah, I think they’ll work just fine with normal plain flour.
Looking at other recipes for flour tortillas most seem to include some sort of fat so you may want to try adding some to see what difference it makes. (I was thinking maybe butter or perhaps some olive oil?).
I’m guessing doing so will add to the flavour of them and possibly also make them a little softer.
Baking powder is another ingredient which seems common in such recipes – again I think this will make them softer and lighter.
July 16th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Yay Leanne! I made some last night, they were fit! I will never buy a mass-produced tortilla again!
July 18th, 2009 at 10:25 am
That’s great Nell! Glad you liked them! Hurrah for making your own tortillas. Yipeeeeee
August 2nd, 2009 at 2:31 am
heyy leane me nd beki were eating some off them raps that my mum has been making since you came to our house we had salad in them haha when are we making bread haha.
love Bef & Beki x
August 2nd, 2009 at 8:09 am
That’s brilliant!
We’ll be round for your bread making lessons some time in the next few days. You’ll have your own bread delivery business by the end of the year, I can see it now, “Rowley’s Rolls”…
BTW, what are you doing up at 2.30 hey??! Shhh, I won’t tell anyone…
August 9th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
I made tortillas with your recipe and added a few fennel seeds to act as flatbreads with our curry tonight.
They were delicious.
Thanks for the tip leanne!
August 13th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
I have been making wraps, bread, pizzas, tortillas and tomato sauce thanks to Leanne and Andy giving me and my daughter lessons. I can not believe that its so cheap to make and easy, unfortunately it may cost me more because the family are really enjoying the cooking and eating more. yum yum
Really looking forward to Friday night as it will be curry night at L & A’s no cooking for me yeah!!!!!
Massive thank you for helping out over the last few weeks with the little ones and am really looking forward to a child free weekend this week.
Hey don’t be trying to turn them into vegtables. xxxxx ooppps vegtarians
January 8th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
What a great website, and cracking idea! I’m definitely going to have a go at this I love tortillas, I’m inspired. I’m not the best cook, (Jon’s fab) so I might be banging on your door with flour in my hair begging help! Maybe next house meal we could have a mexican theme?
Debsx
January 9th, 2010 at 11:12 am
Hi! Feel free to pop round any time for help with your tortillas, although I’m sure you won’t need it, they’re easy peesy. Mexican for next house meal sounds top. Yum! See you soon x
March 20th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Worked well! We needed far more flour as the tortilla was very sticky at first, though.
Now, if only we can get them vaguely circular…