Working With Flour Tortillas

I'm not a fan of Mexican cuisine, or so I thought. Then I decided to try making my own tortillas. This is about flour tortillas, not the corn tortillas from another topic. I got them working pretty much on the first try, and realized they're a whole lot nicer than store-bought. And I started making various Mexican dinners. I'm slowly becoming a fan.

All well and good, but pretty quickly I came to see that my tortillas are just too damn thick! They're great tasting, and make good quesadilla or fold-over soft tacos, but they won't make burritos. These are about 8-9" tortillas, out of 75 grams of dough.

Plus; they didn't seem to have the right "chew." They seemed a little powdery. I looked at the flour. I used some store-brand AP flour, which seems to be around 9% protein. Then I used KA AP, at 12%. Better, but still not so great. Initially, I did the baking powder addition, but as many people comment, it changes the overall experience. So nix to the baking powder.

The more I read and thought about it, the more I suspected that in the old days, and in low-resource countries, people likely don't get to choose much, the type of flour. I figured maybe they're using what we call bread flour. Reading about it all, I saw that, yes, in many cases it's a higher protein flour.

I made a batch with only KA bread flour (14% protein). That was just too stiff. I liked the chew, but it was a bit tough. Back to the research drawing board.

I'm using lard. Initially, the store stuff, but then I rendered some pork fat from the Asian market, and was using that. Good stuff! But I thought maybe I should cut back on the fat. I was using 4 TBs (about 57g) for 300g total flour, but in my experiments with brownies, I thought I could go to 3 TBsp. Nope.

Then I wondered: How can I get thinner tortillas? I'm using a press, and going all the way to "flat." So I borrowed a set of calipers (another topic) and my tape measure and checked. "Flat" means about 1/8-inch. That's actually quite thick! Like pot-pie crust thick! As it cooks, it also rises a bit.

I messed around and eventually found some 1/16th thick popsicle sticks I had for mixing glue. So I pressed the dough to "flat" (between the layers of a split zipper-lock bag). Then took the bag out of the press and rolled the flattened disk on the mat, with the popsicle sticks as guides.

Now THAT was some thin dough! There a trick I learned from pastry cooks to transfer dough: I lifted off the top half of the bag, laid the rolling pin on the dough and pulled a "flap" over the pin, using the bottom of the plastic bag.

As I rolled the pin toward me, I slowly peeled off the bottom plastic before the flap reached the rest of the dough, lifting the pin. That got me the tortilla hanging from the rolling pin, stuck with only the upper 2-3 inches or so. Over the pan. I've learned Medium heat is fine! It was now easy to peel the tortilla off the rolling pin, and lay it in the pan.

I did some flipping, and next thing y'know, the tortillas puffed up like balloons! With all the anxiety over corn tortillas and pita, I thought that was desirable. No, it isn't!

My latest batch works! I'm back to the 57g of lard, but going with 2/3 KA AP flour, and 1/3 KA Bread flour. Just a little salt. I'd been using "hot tap water," because....that's what they all say.

This time, reading some obscure posts that only show up when you abandon normal search engines, I went with actual boiling water. Kind of like yudane.

I weight out the flour, added the bit of salt, smeared in the lard with my fingers, like biscuits, and got the water. Boiled it in the MWO and added to the flour. I used the handle of a wooden spoon, 'cause that's Hot! It didn't take long, though, to cool enough to knead just a little.

I let it sit about 20 minutes, to become "tacky," then weighed out my dough balls (75g). Covered them in plastic and went on with my day. I've learned that I can let that dough sit somewhere for hours! All that happens is it just gets more extensible, and a pleasure to work with.

I typically will set aside the frying time to later, after everyday stuff is finished. I also learned that letting the tortilla sit in the pan for too long, makes it stiff. That, and cooking it at too high a temperature: Medium is fine. I'm using a 12" Farberware steel pan with a good, thick bottom. Tortillas don't have to have non-stick. It's more important to have smooth, even heat distribution.

These tortillas have very light browning at the bubbles. I cooked side-1 until a few bubbles rose up, about 30-seconds (preheated pan). Flipped to side-2 for pretty short time, then flipped to check. Side-2 also have lightly browned bubble spots.

Instead of continuing to fry until the whole thing puffed up (it already was starting), I took the tortilla out and put it under a folded towel. NOW, as they've cooled, I finally have very thin, very flexible tortillas, which certainly compete with Mission tortillas. Only mine taste better.

I also learned about dough "reducers," and L-Cysteine. I use that as a supplement (amino acid), and found a paper by a chemist/baker. The percentage of cysteine is like 0.003%, which is utterly minute. However; he had a formula (for PPM - parts-per-million).

He adds one 600mg capsule to 500 grams of flour and mixes it in well. Then he sets that flour-mix aside. The dry cysteine remains active. Mixing it in water deactivates the amino acid. 

He found that 30% of that parts-per-million was perfect (he's making croissants, but all his bread works with the same percentage). That turns out to be 6 grams of the mixed flour (he keeps in its own jar). It replaces 6-grams of the recipe flour.

I have a micro-scale, and probably would use 100mg of the capsule (they often come in 600-1,000mg), and 84g of flour. Keep in a small jar instead of a big one that takes up room.

I may do that, to see about the extensibility. The long "rest" period is doing fine, but it'd be cool if I could get that kind of extensibility in maybe only half an hour. Plus, the cysteine would be nice to have with the pita bread.

These tortillas tonight are 9" diameter, and for the first time I can roll an actual burrito! Pretty cool stuff! They're 1/16th inch, cooked (sliced in half and measured at the middle).