Sourdough tortillas
Soft, foldable and cooked in a dry pan in under a minute a side. These work with active starter or with discard, which makes them the most forgiving thing on this site.
Uses discardCollected
Active or discard, either works
There is no rise to speak of here, so the starter is doing flavour rather than lifting. Use whatever is in the jar: active starter gives a slightly puffier tortilla, discard a slightly tangier one.
Ingredients
| Ingredient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Sourdough starter or discard | 240 g |
| Plain flour | 250 g |
| Olive oil or melted butter | 45 g |
| Fine salt | 4 g |
| Baking powder, optional | ½ tsp |
| Warm water, as needed | 60-120 g |
The baking powder is not traditional, but it makes a softer, more pliable tortilla. Worth including.
Method
- Mix the starter, flour, salt, baking powder and oil until it starts to come together. Add warm water a little at a time until you have a soft, slightly tacky dough - how much depends entirely on how wet your starter is.
- Knead for 3 to 5 minutes until smooth.
- Cover and rest 30 minutes at room temperature. Do not skip this: an unrested dough springs back as fast as you can roll it.
- Divide into 8 to 10 pieces and roll each into a ball.
- Roll each one out thin, about 2 mm, into a rough circle. Rough is fine.
- Cook in a dry, properly hot pan - cast iron is ideal - for 30 to 60 seconds a side, until bubbles rise and brown spots appear. No oil in the pan.
- Stack them under a tea towel as they come off. They steam each other soft.
For more sourdough flavour
Make the dough the night before and leave it covered at room temperature, or in the fridge for up to two days. Longer fermentation means more tang and a more tender tortilla. Let fridge dough warm up before rolling.
If they come out stiff
- Overcooked. They want seconds, not minutes. Brown spots, then off.
- Pan not hot enough, so they dried out before they coloured.
- Not stacked and covered while cooling.
- Dough too dry. It should be tacky, not firm.
Keeping them
Wrapped at room temperature for a couple of days, or frozen with parchment between them. Reheat in a dry pan for a few seconds a side.
Collected, not yet baked by me
This one came from a baker I trust and is rewritten here in metric and plain language, but it is still on my own to-bake list. The method is sound; the exact timings are the bit I have not personally checked. Watch the dough rather than the clock, and tell me how it went so I can correct it.