Today I wanted to share with you one of the easiest types of bread there is – a tortilla flat bread! This easy tortilla bread is a simple bake with flour, water and salt.
So, what’s so great about this recipe? You don’t need to be a seasoned bread baker to be able to make this bread, it’s brilliant starter bread for beginners.
You also don’t need to worry too much about rising, testing or baking this bread. A few minutes of simple kneading will do the job!
This recipe, like my other flat bread buckwheat recipe, doesn’t need yeast (or any other raising agent), which is why you don’t need to worry about your kneading technique too much.
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Why make this recipe?
- Easy to make
- No-knead recipe
- Simple ingredients – flour, water, salt
- Can be made with other types of flours
- Baked on hob/griddle – no need for oven
- Dairy free recipe
- Vegan recipe
Are tortillas a type of bread?
Yes, they absolutely are! Although these days we think of bread as the light fluffy bread that you can use for sandwiches and toast, in the olden days (before the invention of yeast and the oven), you would have mainly unleavened flat breads. These were easy to make, didn’t need to be proved and didn’t required oven to bake them.
Tortillas were originally made by Maya people in Latin America and Mexico and it’s said that the first tortilla was a gift to the king. Tortillas were traditionally made from corn, but when Spanish discovered Latin Amerika, they brought the recipe with them to Europe, where they started to make the tortillas with plain wheat flour (which was more common in Europe).
What types of flours are best to use for tortilla wraps
This tortilla flat bread recipe is also handy if you run out of strong bread flour, because it uses plain (cake or all-purpose) flour.
You can use other types of flours, including potato flour or lupin flour, but replace only about 10% to make sure the dough still works. Both lupin and potato flour will make the tortilla flat bread a little lighter and add flavour and colour.
If you want to make this recipe gluten free, use your favourite mix of gluten free flours (for cake baking), such as rice, buckwheat, cornflour or other cornmeal substitutes which are naturally gluten free. Make sure that you use xantham gum (1 teaspoon per each 500 grams) to ensure your tortillas won’t fall apart and you can mix them and roll them out easily.
It’s also the most budget-friendly recipe I know since it consists only of plain flour, water and a pinch of salt! You’ll even save on electricity, as you will make these tortilla flatbreads on the hob in a frying pan (or a griddle) and not bake them in the oven.
Tortilla bread ingredients
The basic recipe is very simple – all you need is a plain (cake) flour, water and some salt. You could even leave the salt out (perhaps for health reasons), but the bread would become very bland.
What does a tortilla or other flat breads use to rise?
Absolutely nothing! That’s right! Traditional tortilla flat breads don’t use any yeast, baking powder, baking soda or any other types of leavening to rise it’s dough.
By it’s nature, the tortilla flatbreads are flat and don’t require any rising, which makes them super easy to make, quick to bake and there is much shorter time required for proving your bread.
How to make this easy tortilla flat bread recipe
Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl to form a rough dough.
Turn the dough on to your kitchen worktop and knead for a few minutes, until the dough is smooth and no longer sticky.
Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel or a plastic bag and leave the dough to rest for about half an hour. This helps to relax the gluten and makes the tortilla dough easier to roll out.
Divide the bread dough into eight equal parts and shape each piece into a tight ball.
Lightly flour your work surface and using a rolling pin, roll the rounds out thinly to 2-3mm thickness.
Place a large frying pan over a medium heat and have ready a large plate and a clean tea towel. When the frying pan is hot, lay a tortilla on it and cook (bake) for half a minute or so, until the underside has few patches, that are dark brown.
Flip over your tortilla and cook for another 30 seconds, then slide it on to your plate and wrap it in the tea towel to prevent it from drying out and getting hard. Keep adding the tortillas to the tea towel as you cook them.
How to keep your easy tortilla wraps
If you are not planning on eating the tortillas straight away, you can always wrap them in foil to stop them from drying out.
You can also keep your tortilla wraps in the freezer for up 3 months and just take them out whenever you fancy it.
Recipe – batch size
This very much depends on how big you make these tortillas, but I make medium size tortillas (slightly smaller than a dinner plate) and I manage to get about 8 tortillas out of this recipe.
Do I need to have a tortilla wrap maker to make bake tortillas?
Whilst tortilla press maker is a nice to have, it’s definitely not necessary to have one to make tortillas at home. I’m sure that the first Maya and Aztek people didn’t have one, so I think we can make do without one in the 21 century.
The tortilla wrap maker will make the tortilla bread unified, the same size and thickness and it will also bake it from both sides.
Making tortilla bread on a heavy frying pan or flat griddle might perhaps take slightly longer, you’ll still end up with a perfectly good tortilla flat breads.
Easy Tortilla Flat Bread
Equipment
- large frying pan or griddle
Ingredients
- 250 grams plain white flour (cake flour) plus extra for dusting
- 150 ml water more if the dough is too tight
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl to form a rough dough.
- Turn the dough on to your kitchen worktop and knead for a few minutes, until the dough is smooth and no longer sticky.
- Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel or a plastic bag and leave the dough to rest for about half an hour. This helps to relax the gluten and makes the tortilla dough easier to roll out.
- Divide the bread dough into eight equal parts and shape each piece into a tight ball.
- Lightly flour your work surface and using a rolling pin, roll the rounds out thinly to 2-3mm thickness.
- Place a large frying pan over a medium heat and have ready a large plate and a clean tea towel.
- When the frying pan is hot, lay a tortilla on it and cook (bake) for half a minute or so, until the underside has few patches, that are dark brown.
- Flip over your tortilla and cook for another 30 seconds, then slide it on to your plate and wrap it in the tea towel to prevent it from drying out and getting hard.
- Keep adding the tortillas to the tea towel as you cook them.
- If you are not planning on eating the tortillas straight away, you can always wrap them in foil to stop them from drying out.You can also keep your tortilla wraps in the freezer for up 3 months and just take them out whenever you fancy it.
Learn how to bake bread at home with my practical bread making e-book. Step by step techniques, photos and tips on how to bake artisan bread, sourdough and enriched dough treats. Read the customer’s review on Amazon and 
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