It seems like ages ago that I last posted about tortillas, but it’s actually been less than a year!  Wow.  The very fact that here I am doing another post on tortillas — not even updating the old one, just doing a completely new one! — will drive home how much I think my recipe-making skills have improved since January.  Whether or not you think they’ve improved that much — well, try these tortillas and find out, I guess.  🙂  They’re quick, easy, and delicious (the only time-consuming part is if you want to really wait for the butter to soften properly).  The dough is so well-behaved I’ve never had to roll out an uncooperative tortilla twice (which is a major improvement over the last version of this recipe, that’s for sure).

I know, I know, not a very Christmas-y post to do a few weeks before Christmas, but these are still really good.  🙂  I don’t even bother topping them before I eat them, though of course you could make quesadillas or burritos or what have you if you like.

Easy Tortillas

Yield:  6-8 on average, but it really depends pretty drastically on how big and how even you make them!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup + 2 T dough mix, divided
• 1 T baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
• 1/4 tsp guar gum
• 3/4 cup milk
• 2 T softened butter

Directions:

1.  In a small-to-medium mixing bowl, stir together 1 1/4 cup of the dough mix and the remaining dry ingredients (baking powder, salt, xanthan gum, guar gum).

2.  With a pastry cutter, or just a fork (which works just as well for small quantities like this), cut the softened butter into the dry mixture until it’s more or less evenly distributed and there aren’t any clumps bigger than a small marble.

3.  Add the milk, and stir the dough together with a fork.  (You can use a stand mixer for this step if you like, but it’s not really necessary.)  It’ll be pretty sticky still once you’re done, but that’s fine.

4.  Measure out the rest of the dough mix — about 6 T — and set it aside.  Use a little of it at a time to dust a countertop and knead it into the dough.  Keep this up till you’ve used up all the dough mix.  At this point the dough shouldn’t be sticky, but it’s not really classically “smooth” either.

5.  Without dusting the countertop again, cut a piece of the dough, then use a rolling pin to roll it out flat on the counter.  If the dough’s too sticky to come up from the countertop afterwards, knead a little more dough mix into the whole lump, but resist the temptation to dust the countertop to make it easier to get the rolled dough up!  If there’s any mix that isn’t kneaded in on either side of the tortilla, the cooked tortilla will be really dusty.

6.  Heat an ungreased skillet on high (or very close to it, depending on your stove) and lay the tortilla down in the pan.  After a few seconds it’ll start to puff up here and there.  Once it’s puffed, start checking the underside with your spatula to see how done it looks so you know when to flip the tortilla over (see pictures).

7.  Once both sides are cooked, move the tortilla to a plate to cool, and lay down the next tortilla to start cooking.  If it’s just you eating, go ahead and dig in if you like; if you’re serving a group, they can dig in when all the tortillas are done.  🙂