Tag Archives: recipe

home made flour tortillas

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8

tortilla main

Tortillas are often taken for granted. We just fill them and eat them without so much as a second thought. It’s unfortunate, really, since your typical store-bought tortilla is completely boring, flavorless and dry.

I wanted to go back to what I used to enjoy on my trips to Mexico, to what our exchange students Ana and Kendra would make. Most of the recipes I found called for baking powder – an ingredient I didn’t recall in their tortillas. I did try a baking powder recipe once (thinking it would give my tortillas lift) and I ended up with hard, flour frisbees. Supposedly if you go past the first one or two tortillas, they end up less frisbee-ish, but I never made it that far (I’m easily discouraged). I’m sure there’s no way the baking powder recipes would be so prevalent if everyone had the same results, so by all means try one of those if you like.

So finally, I asked Kendra for her recipe, which would have made enough to feed an army, scaled down it resembled a recipe I came across on the kitchn. So, I went for it, mashing the recipes, with what i remembered from our visits to Mexico, I finally found a suitable tortilla. Simple ingredients, subtle flavor.

Just flour, salt, fat, and water. That’s all you really need. You can roll them very thin, or keep them a little thicker if that’s what you’re into. I like to cook mine on the grill; everything is better on the grill. You could also add extra spices to the flour mixture, or even a bit of whole wheat, but I like to keep mine simple (you don’t want the tortilla’s flavor to overpower what you put in it). Although, I’ve been known to snack on just the tortillas…

Home-Made Tortillas

[ Printable Recipe ]

  • 2 3/4 cups All Purpose Flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon Salt
  • 5 Tablespoons shortening
  • 3/4 cup Warm Water

Whisk together flour and salt. Add cubes of shortening and mush through your hands until the mixture forms coarse crumbs (alternatively, you could use a food processor, it depends on how motivated you are).

Add water to flour mixture and stir or work with hands until a dough is formed (if using food processor, pulse until it comes into a ball)

Knead gently until dough comes together; roll into 10 – 15 balls, depending how big you want your tortillas. Toss balls into the same bowl you used to mix them for storage, covering with a damp towel to keep them from drying out. Let rest about 30 minutes. (This 30 minutes is a good time to cook your taco filling, giving it time to rest while you get back to your tortillas)

 

 

 

 

 

Flatten with a press and/or rolling pin until they are your desired level of thinness. I like to flatten mine with the press AND roll them (the press gets them much closer to a circle shape than they would otherwise end up).

 

Cook over medium-high heat on a nonstick skillet or grill until bubbly. Flip and continue to cook, should take about 30 seconds per tortilla. Be careful not to burn them, if that means you have to flip them a little more often, go for it. Wrap in foil and/or a kitchen towel until it’s time to serve.

* If you use a tortilla press, be sure to place plastic wrap (or a ziploc bag with the sides cut open) over the press to make your tortillas easier to remove (otherwise they will just end up stuck to the press)

* You can make the tortilla balls a few days ahead of time, keep them covered in the refrigerator and use them throughout the week to always have fresh tortillas on-hand.

* If going the food-processor route – whir flour and salt together. Add shortening and continue processing. Stream in water and pulse until dough forms a ball. Pour onto counter and knead into cohesive dough, then roll into balls.

[ Adapted from the kitchn & my good friend Kendra ]

girl scout fake out

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Tagalong Bars

Everyone loves girl scout cookies. I think part of their allure is that you can only have them one time out of the year. You spend the whole year building them up in your head, even resorting to stalking little girls… Apparently stalking children is OK, so long as they’re the ones using the treats to lure you to their vans… “Come over here, I have a van full of cookies”… I’m onto you, girl scouts…

No matter how much you love girl scout cookies, there’s no way you can look past their insane price tags. Well you can, but I had to limit myself to two boxes last year. TWO BOXES!!! I mean, they’re usually parked right outside the grocery store, which sells similar cookies at half the price. I get that we’re helping their cause, but really? Four to five dollars a box? And there’s only like twelve cookies in there… that’s going to last me what, six minutes? Maybe seven if I slow down to savor them…

Some time last week I made the millionaire shortbread recipe from my Baked cookbook, but was completely underwhelmed. I may post the recipe, since tons of people rave about it, but it was just too… monotone. It didn’t have enough flavor, and the flavor it did have just kinda melded together into one basic flavor: sugar. I tried sprinkling some sea salt on top which helped, but not enough to make me eat them. I had however been planning to try my hand at Tagalongs for some time, and the millionaire shortbread motivated me to finally make them, being that they are similar in that they are layered shortbread bars.

No way I’m rolling and cutting 43824239430 shortbread cookies, pressing a little indent into each one, filling it with peanut butter and then covering it in chocolate. Just typing that made me tired. Bar form? Now that’s what I’m talking about. I knew what not to do with the shortbread from the millionaire bars, so I found a new shortbread recipe and set myself on the path to girl scout cookie heaven. If you like Tagalongs, you’ll love these – they’re so good. You must make them. Must.

Home Made “Tagalong” Bars

[ Printable Recipe ]

For the cookie layer

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
  • ½ cup sugar
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • ¼ teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons milk

For the peanut butter layer

  • 1 2/3 cups creamy peanut butter
  • 2/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

For the chocolate layer*

  • 6 ounces semi sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
  • 1 teaspoon light corn syrup
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened, cut into cubes

For the cookies:

  1. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
  2. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla extract and milk. Add flour and mix on low until just incorporated. It will be on the dry side.
  3. Pour out onto parchment paper and form into general rectangle shape. Roll close to 9 x 13” and transfer into 9 x 13 baking pan. Press into bottom of pan until it reaches the edges, leaving a slight lip on the edges.
  4. Poke holes in shortbread with a fork and bake at 350F for about 20 minutes, until lightly golden on top. Cool completely on wire rack before topping.

For the filling:

  1. Beat the peanut butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla until mixed. Spread over shortbread layer. It will be thick and difficult to spread, an offset spatula worked best for me J

For the topping:

  1. Melt chocolate, butter, and corn syrup in a double boiler*. Pour over peanut butter layer and place in fridge to harden.

Notes:

*If you’re lazy you can use just melted chocolate, about 7 or 8 ounces will cover it.

*Melt in a double boiler, a non-reactive bowl over simmering water, or a microwave in 30 sec intervals @ 50% power

*Cut with a knife, wiping with a warm, damp cloth in between. They may get a little messy…

[ shorbread adapted from here ]

[ chocolate layer adapted from Baked ]