I wanted to use up all these leftovers we’ve had in the freezer forever: homemade refried beans, spanish rice, tomatillo salsa, so I decided to try making homemade flour tortillas for burritos. I absolutely LOVE fresh flour tortillas, especially when they are thin and super stretchy, but also really soft.

I used half regular unbleached flour and half bread flour hoping to achieve the stretchiness.

I also used milk for softness. A while back I made roomali roti, which is an Indian bread that is similar, but uses part atta flour (whole wheat flour). That recipe called for milk which always seems to help me make rotis softer (I think I’ve made okay rotis 1-2 times, but it has been so long since I haven’t messed them up that it is hard to remember, but the time I made them with milk they were softer!), so I found this flour tortilla recipe that also uses milk. The only thing is that the sugars in the milk might have kept the gluten from forming as much, cause while they were stretchy, they weren’t super stretchy. I’ve also read that fats can do this too, but most flour tortilla recipes call for shortening or lard, so how to get that super duper stretchy tortilla? Maybe just more bread flour?

Anyways, this is getting too scientific and over my head! They were soft and slightly stretchy and really thin due to a trick I learned when making roomali roti. You take two pieces of dough (the amount for one tortilla each) and spray or drizzle with olive oil, then lightly flour, stick together the oil and floured sides, then roll the two at once as thin as you can trying to keep from wrinkling the dough at all. Then you peel them apart and they are thin. Voila!

1 cup flour
1 cup bread flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
~3/4 cup milk heated in the microwave for about a minute
Olive oil spray
Rice flour for dusting (you can also use regular flour)

1. Mix flour, bread flour, baking powder, and salt together.
2. Work the butter in with your fingers until it is well incorporated.
3. Drizzle in the milk mixing with your hand until a soft semi-sticky dough forms. You might not need the whole 3/4 cup.
4. Knead for a minute or so, then wrap with plastic wrap and let sit for 20-30 minutes. This relaxes the gluten so they will roll out.
5. Separate into 6 balls and let sit again for about 20 minutes.
6. Push each ball into a flat disk and spray with olive oil spray and dust with flour on just one side. This is to keep the two disks from sticking together in the next step.
7. Take two of the disks and push them together oil/flour side towards each other and try and get the edges as even as you can.
8. Repeat two more times with the other 4 disks, so that you have 3 tortilla sets.
9. Roll out the disks as thin and round as you can.
10. Carefully pull the tortillas part so that you have 6 thin tortillas.
11. Heat a skillet over medium high heat and cook for a minute or so on each side.
12. Store in a heated container until ready to use. We have a tortilla warmer like this which works great! It makes the tortillas even more soft.