Almost Anna’s Perfect Flour Tortillas

Imagine being a lower income family, feeding 8 kids during Summertime, and not being on any kind of welfare. This is my husband’s family. He has 5 brothers and 2 sisters, all within a 1 1/2 years of each other in age. They didn’t have much but they always had food and to this day, one of my husband’s most fondest memories is coming in the house from playing outside all day and seeing his Mom rolling out flour tortillas, stacked to what seem like a mile high, at least to a kid anyways.

I married into the family at 16 years of age. I can remember watching my mother-in-law quickly rolling out those tortillas all while hands from every direction where snagging them up and slathering butter all over them. The kitchen was hot and they were disappearing faster than she could whip them out but she never once complained. In fact, she never complained about anything in the whole time I knew her. She loved seeing her family eat. As a wife and mother, it was a job she took pride in.

After fifteen years of making tortillas, I have finally nailed down the perfect recipe for us.  My mother-in-law taught me early in my marriage but because she had been doing it for years and years, she never needed to measure anything.  Handfuls of this, partial handfuls of that was how she showed me.  Today I’m sharing her recipe, tweaked with what I feel would be her measurements, although, I measure with my hands just like she did.

You see, my mother-in-law passed away five years ago, so every single recipe I have from her is valuable to me. She made the best tortillas I have ever had.  I’ll never be able to make them like she did and that’s okay because I wouldn’t ever want to.  I love remembering how good hers were with butter and how half the pile would be gone before she ever finished.  Her tortillas were her signature food.  My grandmother passed away the same year….every single recipe I have of hers is valuable as well so let this be a lesson to you; share those moments with them, learn from them, and hold on to it to pass down for generations.

3 Tools you need to get started:

1) Rolling Pin– You need something to roll out your tortillas.  My mother-in-law would cut off the end of broom stick and use that.

2) Cast Iron Griddle– They make the round ones for one tortilla at a time but who has time for that? Get the bigger rectangle one so that you can do two or even three at once.

3) Tortillas Warmer– I have an older model that was very similar to the one my mother–in-law used.  It holds well over 50 tortillas.

And the Video

Almost Anna’s Flour Tortillas Recipe

Ingredients

• 4 1/2 Cups Flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 Tbl Baking Powder
• 1/4 cup of Manteca (lard)
• Hot water (up to 2 cups)

Directions

Sift your flour, salt, and baking powder together.  Add lard and mix in thoroughly.  Add hot water (as hot as you can stand it) and knead until soft dough forms.  It might be sticky.  Pinch off dough to form small, flatter balls.  Let dough rest 15 minutes. While your dough is resting, get your griddle nice and hot.  Roll out tortillas and cook on hot griddle.  Place in tortilla warmer and don’t forget to let the kiddos get one and add butter while it’s warm.  To die for!  If you need step-by-step photo tutorial, I have an old one on my blog that might help. Photos are awful but that was before I knew how to use a camera.  Enjoy!

This is dedicated to my mother-in-law, who I miss a great deal and was the best tortilla maker ever.