Experiment #5, Part 2: Making Your Own Tortillas

I have made my salsa, and now I must make the tortillas for the fajitas that Mike and I decided on.

Honestly, I'm not sure what got into me when I decided to make my own tortillas. I think the sandwich bread went to my head and I wanted to keep going. I have no experience whatsoever with making tortillas, nor have I ever heard any of my gourmet chef friends mentioning tortillas. This promises to be a very great adventure.

Here's the recipe I'm following: Homemade Tortillas

A quick note: I wasn't keeping track of the time on this one, because things got a bit chaotic...

Make your own Tortillas 

Step One: The non-chaotic step

Mix ingredients

This was certainly the easiest part. Throw all the ingredients in a bowl and stir them together. I noticed a problem pretty quickly, though, and that is that my ingredients looked too thin. 

Step Two: Things get messy 

Knead the dough 10-12 times

Wait...This is supposed to be the consistency of sugar cookie dough, and be knead-able? Sugar cookie dough is sticky, and this was sticky. Really sticky. I kept throwing more flour on it and in it, trying to make it some consistency that could be kneaded, and I was able to knead it a bit, but it just kept sticking. But the chaos is only getting started.

Step Three: Flour and Dough go everywhere. 

Divide dough into equal portions, roll it out, and cook it. 

The dough is still sticky, even with the flour. I manage to get it into equal portions, and I even manage to get it fairly flat.

The problem, though, is that when I try to move it into the skillet to cook, it won't stay in a tortilla shape! I try picking it up, flipping it over, scooping it up with a spatula, and nothing works.

I finally  decide to stretch it out with my fingers before putting the dough in the skillet (which is turned off) and then stretch it further in the skillet to make a somewhat tortilla shape. Then I turn on the skillet. This works decently well, but is highly inefficient, and means that I have to turn off the skillet between every tortilla. I get impatient and almost burn myself a few times because I don't wait for the skillet to cool off sufficiently (don't try this at home, friends). 

Finally, after much fighting with sticky dough, I make a plate full of misshapen tortillas. The good news? At least they taste alright.

Was it worth it? 

The Competition: 

Tortillas at the store: $3.49 - $4.49

Cost of my tortillas:

Flour, store brand: $0.08 

Olive Oil: $0.99

Total:  $1.07

Time: Over an hour...probably would get easier with practice 

Difficulty Level: Very Hard 

Final Assessment: 

Well...the tortillas were tasty, but that was incredibly difficult. I am certain that it would get easier with practice, and I probably did a whole lot of things wrong. First time tortilla makers, be prepared for a difficult time, though. I'm about to go do a whole lot of reading if I am going to attempt this one again. It certainly does save money, but I'll need to figure out the process for it to be worthwhile.