"I Just Bought Spelt Flour & Flaxseed on a Whim" Flour Tortillas

The nice thing about taco wrappers is their implicit simplicity - there's no real way to tart up a tortilla with any fancy-schmancy ingredients. There are precisely two kinds, & they more or less are what they is. A flour tortilla will have flour, fat (traditionally lard), salt, & water. Contemporary recipes may sometimes also include baking powder or, oddly, a lil' bit of vegetable oil. A corn tortilla is made of masa harina & water. And if you want to make corn tortillas, I highly recommend investing in a cast-iron tortilla press. Corn tortillas are a bitch to shape without one.

Last night, I felt compelled to make the flour variety. Here's how I did it (recipe adapted from Beth Hensperger's Breads of the Southwest):

Ingredients
2 c unbleached all-purpose flour*
1 c whole-wheat flour
1 c spelt flour
1/4 c flaxseed (optional)
1 1/2 tsp sea salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 c (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes, chilled**
1 1/2 c warm water (95 - 105 degrees)

Makes fifteen 8- to 9-inch tortillas

Whisk the flours, flaxseed, salt & baking powder together in a large bowl. Add the butter cubes & cut into the dry ingredients using a pastry blender, two butter knives or your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine crumbles. Slowly add the warm water in small amounts, stirring with a wooden spoon. Add only enough so that the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl & forms a ball (for example, I only needed about 1 1/4 c). It should be soft but not sticky. Too much water will make the tortilla tough. Turn the dough onto the work surface & form into a fat cylinder. Wrap in plastic wrap & let rest for at least 30 minutes & up to 2 hours. The dough should be slightly puffy & shiny.

Turn dough onto a lightly floured work surface & divide into 15 equal portions. Form each piece into a ball & place on a parchment-paper-lined or lightly greased baking sheet. Cover with a clean, damp dish towel or lightly oiled plastic wrap & let rest for another 20 to 30 minutes.

Take a ball & push your index finger into the bottom of it (looks kinda like a finger-mushroom). This creates an air pocket that helps the tortilla maintain roundness when being rolled out. Place the ball on a lightly floured work surface & flatten. Use a rolling pin to roll it out into an 8- or 9-inch diameter circle.***
(Note re picture: you can see the August 2007 bowls'o'bread fiasco scar on the finger-mushroom stem! Which still hurts when I accidentally smack it against things. I like that it, along with the July 2007 scar on my knee (lest we forget: platform wedges & a heavy duffel bag going down a hill will most likely end badly for the accoutrement-bearer) will bear tandem witness for the rest of days to my enduring & incontrovertible illogic.)

Place a piece of plastic wrap on a plate, & put the tortilla on the plastic wrap. Aaaand, repeat 14x! Don't forget to put plastic wrap between each tortilla or (1) they will dry out & (2) even worse, they will probably stick together something fierce.

Heat a comal, griddle, or heavy skillet (preferably cast iron) over medium-high heat until drops of water sprinkled on it dance across its surface. You may also use the lightweight piece of crap T-Fal which is the only skillet you currently own because your decimated collection of cookware continues to patiently await its restoration. Place as many tortillas as will fit onto the surface. Cook the first side for 30 seconds. It will bubble a bit - use a spatula to push & twist the bubbles down. Pick up the tortilla with your hand (not a spatula) & flip it over, then cook & bubble-flatten the second side for thirty seconds more.

You might see a few brown spots, but ideally you don't want to see any. Remove the tortilla by hand to either a clean towel or have a plastic wrap redux party on a plate.

Aaaand, repeat 14x! Towel tortillas should be served immediately; plastic-sandwiched ones may be stored in a plastic bag. Beth says to use the tortillas by the next day, but I bet they'd last a little longer. My grand plan is to have a couple of tacos for dinner, then make some Seeded Tortilla Triangles & watch the Lindsay "My Paycheck For This Went Right Up Nose" Lohan crazy-stripper-stalked-by-crazier-serial-killer movie. Whatever's left over is going in the freezer. Of the tortillas, I mean.

* I'm slavishly devoted to King Arthur's A-P F, so that's what I recommend having on hand. Additionally, you may use the flours in whatever proportions you want; but I would recommend keeping at least two cups of the all-purpose in the mix, otherwise the tortillas will probably be too dense & heavy.

** You may also use 1/2 c of any of these: lard, vegetable shortening, or bacon drippings. While lard is traditional & does make a tasty tortilla, I wasn't going to spend my whole night hunting down natural (i.e. non-partially-hydrogenated with no BHT) lard. Although rendering my own has now officially been added to my endless list of projects. The shortening is the next best taste-wise, but the proliferation of hydrogenated oils therein, trans-fat-free or no, terrifies me.

*** I've had the most success rolling these like pie crusts - one up-&-down roll, rotate the tortilla by a quarter, another up-& down roll, rotate the tortilla by a quarter...you get the idea. Lightly dust the top with flour if it sticks to the pin. You can cut away slight misshapes with a sharp knife.