Easter And Tortillas

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Easter.  It was a three day weekend for me starting with Friday off.  My wife has a part time job now and had to work Friday and Sunday, so I had plenty of time to myself.  My next vacation is in May and I can hardly wait.  Anyway, I went out for lunch yesterday then came home and watched the Brewers in the afternoon.  So, a good day, but didn't really feel like a holiday.

I normally make myself a list of things to get done over the weekends.  It had been a while since I posted, so I had 'write' on my list, but other than more about the weather I had nothing to write about all weekend.  Then yesterday I made tortillas again, the fourth attempt.  Now, every recipe gives you a choice of fat; vegetable oil, butter, shortening or lard.  First attempt was with vegetable oil, rolled and fried.  Then I got a cast iron tortilla press.  The second attempt was a different recipe and I tried butter as the fat, and used the heated press to try and press and cook at the same time.  My results were very poor.  On the third attempt I went back to the first recipe and used oil again.  I also used the cool press to form them but fried them in a pan.  Not bad, but I still didn't like the greasy look and they had to get bigger.

For this fourth attempt I used that same recipe, doubled, and with shortening.  I also increased the dough balls from 50 grams to 80 grams, and added just a touch of baking powder.  Again, I used the press to form them then fried in a pan.  So far I got my best results yet, though I may increase the weight to 90 or 100 grams next time.  

I'm not sure why, but I didn't try one at the time.  They looked and felt really good so I just trusted that, I suppose.  Well, tonight we're going to have tacos for dinner so we'll know for sure if I'm on the right track.  I'll wait to post this until after dinner, then leave a few more thoughts after this pic of my assembly line.

Well, not too shabby for just the fourth attempt.  Pretty good, even.  Leftovers from attempts two and three have been tossed out now as these are easily better.  The next try will be larger tortillas and I may omit the baking powder to see the difference.  All in all, a good batch.  Practice makes perfect, right?