Mastering The Homemade Tortilla and Salad Shell

I just.. I love tortillas. I really… really love tortillas. And learning how to make them just made me appreciate them that much more.

I don’t know if that’s considered particularly beautiful or not, but when I tell you it was deeeee-licious? Believe me!

1 1/2 cups of organic whole wheat flour
1tsp baking powder
1/4tsp salt
2tsp butter
1/2 cup +2 tbsp warm water

First, add your flour, baking powder and salt to a large bowl, and mix them up. Drop your butter inside, and do what you can to “cut” it into the flour. What this means is you’re going to try to break the butter up into small pieces, thereby mixing it more thoroughly into the bowl. It’ll look like small pebbles if you’re doing it properly.

From here, slowly pour in your water a few drops at a time until the dough is soft, yet not sticky. You don’t want it to have so much moisture that you have to add more flour to it to work with it. You want it to still have a dryness to it, but wet enough that it can all be rolled up into a ball. (Don’t worry… it may take you a little time to understand what this means if you’re new to dough making. Just keep playing with it.)

Now, you’ll knead the dough for a few minutes to try to even it out and blend it a bit more. This is why the wet/dry consistency is so important. If it’s too wet, it’ll stick to your hands and your surface. If it’s too dry, you’ll wind up with crumbs. No good.

From here, you’ll pull off small pieces of your dough and roll them up unto doughy balls, maybe two inches big. Wrap them up and stick them in the fridge for a few minutes.

Grab one of your balls and a rolling pin. Sprinkle some extra flour on your countertop, and put your dough ball in the middle. Start rolling it out into a circle shape… like so!

Not perfect, but it’s good enough for me.

If all you want is a nice tortilla, then you can heat up your oven to about 200 degrees F, and slide it in there for a few minutes until it begins to brown. Flip it over one good time, and that should do it! It should still have its ability to be bent and folded, and it should be nice and warm.

However. If you want to go the extra mile and make a baked shell? We’ve got some work to do.

Find yourself a nice sized bowl with a flat bottom that can withstand some time in the oven. I happened to have this on hand:

Cover it with aluminum foil, like below. (I was well into making my SECOND tortilla shell at this point, so excuse my little fuzz on my foil.)

Set your shellmaker next to your tortilla on the counter, because you’ll need to do the next part quickly. Pick up your shell, and place it on top of the foil covered bowl.

Bake in the oven for approximately 10 minutes or until you start seeing the very bottom of your shell start to brown. Check your shell to see if it’s began to harden properly. If not, slide it back into the oven. Keep an eye on it, though.

Once it’s hardened a bit, you can lift the foil off of the bowl, turn your shell right-side-up, and slide it back into the oven for about 5 minutes, keeping an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t turn too brown. After that, slide it out and let it cool!