Wheat Tortillas

We got this recipe from Miss Amanda's Mama. We made them today.

Here are the ingredients:
3 C. wheat flour
2 tsp. Baking Powder
1 tsp. salt
5 TBSP. shortening
1 1/4 C. warm water

Mix together the wheat flour, baking powder, and salt. Cut in shortening until it resembles coarse crumbs. Slowly add warm water and mix well. If the dough is too moist slowly sprinkle in a little bit more flour and keep mixing until stretchy, but not too dry.

Divide the dough in half and then half again. (Unless you want smaller tortillas then you can split it again.)



Lightly sprinkle some flour onto a dry surface and gently place the rolling pin into the center of the ball and begin to roll back and forth. We used a heavy marble rolling pin so we didn't have to push down very hard. Each time you roll, stop and flip over the dough. Keep doing this until it is thin and ready to go onto a hot skillet.

My mom helped me so I wouldn't get burned. Once the skillet is hot place the tortilla onto the skillet and cook 1 minute on each side. We put the tortillas onto a cooling rack until cooled all the way.


Then we put them into a Ziploc bag.
(*If you put them into the bag too soon the tortillas will condensate. Condensation is kind of like sweating. The heat from the tortillas in a bag will cause steam and then when the steam hits the bag it becomes water. This will make your tortillas mushy.)




A normal bag of wheat tortillas at the store costs us about $4 and we probably spent only about .50 cents or a dollar to make the same amount. We made 2 batches today. We will start doing this every week, because we eat a lot of Mexican food around here.

Next we want to learn how to make corn tortillas.






When you read ingredient lists or write down recipes be sure to remember these tips:
1. C. means cup.
2. tsp. means teaspoon.
3. TBSP. means tablespoon

When you mix flour, spoon it into the cup loosely and using a butter knife, slide across the top to get off the extra amount. It needs to be level. You slide across the top when you measure the Baking Powder and shortening too.

To 'Cut In' is a way of mixing in shortening and flour. You can do this two ways. We use a pastry blender. It has several small blades connected to a handle. You kind of chop and mix at the same time. If you don't have a pastry blender you can use two knives. One in each hand and crisscross them into the mixture.



Mom, thank you for helping me to put this in my blog.