One tortilla, two tortilla, three tortilla...

At my son's last birthday, I realized that his cake was the last that I intended on buying. I could not believe that it cost me $26 for some flour and sugar - and I vowed to make my own from then on. I have a book that I plan on using for decorating help. I might also take a cake decorating class if the nearby Michaels offers them.

I felt similarly when I started making my own pancakes. I couldn't believe that I - and many others like me - had been suckered into buying mixes. It was so easy, and so much better, to make my own!

Well, I had heard the raves about homemade tortillas. Little Mexican Grandmas have been doing it for eons, so why couldn't I? Surely, women in Mexico in the early 1900's - without any of the conveniences of today - were able to make the tortilla work. With my fully stocked kitchen I shouldn't have a problem. My only concern was calories and fat, so I went ahead and looked up a recipe for those that are reduced fat.

What I discovered was that tortillas are absurdly simple. You have some sort of fat (in my case, light, organic, vegan margarine), flour, salt, and a leavening agent (in my case, baking powder - although some called for soda). Fat free tortillas actually call for fat free mayo instead of fat. You mix the dry, cut in the fat, and then stir in HOT water until a dough forms. Divide up the dough, let sit for 15 minutes, roll out, and cook. Simple.

Except not. Well, the mixing was simple, the cooking was not.

First, as I said, you toss in the dry and stir together.

2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups unbleached flour

Next, you must "cut in" the fat. Enter, pastry cutter. 4 Tblsp margarine or butterYou're basically looking to press the butter into the flour, over and over, turning the bowl, in order to make the dry ingredients look sort of crumbly. The "official" baking term is course cornmeal.

Next, add in the water until the dough is together and sticky.

1 1/4 cups water. Plop the dough onto a WELL FLOURED surface and knead for just a couple of minutes, until it's velvety and soft. Then the instructions say to "tear" the dough into 12 pieces. Yeah, right. I'd end up with 13 tortillas of all different shapes and sizes. I made a mound and got a knife. I cut in half, and shaped each half into a mound. Then I cut each mound in half again (now I have four halves). I then cut each half into thirds. That makes my yield of 12.

How's THAT for a math lesson.

Roll each piece into little balls and sprinkle with flour.

I just think this little dough ball picture is cool. Now comes the part that is going to take practice. You need to let the dough "rest" for 10-15 minutes. This is something consistent across all recipes. Just like you have to let bread rise, you must let the dough rest.

Then, one by one, you need to roll it out. Now, the outside of the tortilla gets sort of crispy/crusty. So, you don't want to roll it so thick that it won't "roll." You also don't want to make it so thin that it gets crunchy (think tortilla chips) too quickly. You want to find Baby Bear's bed - just right.

You also want the temperature pretty high - between 375 and 400. I had mine too low, which dried out the tortillas before I got the pretty golden spots I was going for. I cooked mine on a griddle, I am thinking a pan would have worked better. They have these fancy tortilla cookers, but we just don't eat them enough for me to invest in such a thing. You cook them just like you would a pancake

I got a "thought it was pretty good, it's a tortilla, I don't know what you expect," from the husband. So, passable to say the least. I know the dough is fine, so getting the cooking down will take me a few tries. This is true for many of these kinds of things - pizza took me a few tries too.

The beautiful thing about tortillas is you don't have to fill them with Mexican food. I filled the husband's tortilla with chickpeas and couscous (leftover) seasoned with curry powder. Again, passable. I love the idea that if the mood for wraps, or fajitas, or burritos hits - I don't have to give up just because I don't have tortillas. I almost always have the ingredients around, so it's just a matter of making them.

As an aside, I made my French bread recipe into a loaf bread. It worked pretty well, and made the best PBJs. In my original recipe, I divided the dough in half to get two loaves. In the bread pan, the whole thing went into one (I've got jumbo sized pans for sandwiches). Nice big pieces, with spongy crevices where the peanut butter and honey soaked into. The slices were too thick for the kids - I need a better bread knife. Also, I think I need to half again the recipe and put half of THAT batch in each loaf pan (so, we're looking at 2/3 and 2/3 in each of the pans). I will try that after my knew bread knife shows up. And post with a simple conversion if that works out better. I have a couple of other bread recipes to try too.

Happy tortilla making!