Fresh Milled Sourdough Tortillas (Soft and Foldable!)
Ingredients
- 250 g sourdough discard
- 200 g milk warm
- 75 g olive oil
- 400 g hard white wheat flour
- 6 g fine sea salt
Method
- In a bowl of a stand mixer, add the sourdough discard, warm milk, olive oil, and salt. Add the fresh-milled flour and mix until there’s no dry bits of flour left. Mix for about 2 minutes, so the ingredients mix together. The dough may seem slightly rough or dry, but the goal is to get a dough slightly stiffer than bread dough. Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for about 30 minutes. After resting, mix the dough for about 3–5 minutes with a dough hook attachment. You are not trying to develop a perfect bread dough here. The goal is simply to bring the dough together and make it cohesive. The dough should feel pliable, but still a bit stiff. It should ideally form a ball in your stand mixer (although not necessarily, depending on which stand mixer you have!). Optional: you can mix everything by hand, it will just take a few minutes longer. But it’s definitely possible!
- Cover the bowl and let the dough ferment at room temperature for about 2–6 hours. You are not looking for a huge rise, it’s not like working with bread dough. The dough should simply become a bit larger in volume (but not much!), and the consistency will become better for handling. Even that is optional, since tortillas don’t necessarily need to be fermented, but I find that the fermentation will make them softer, so I recommend fermenting them for at least a couple of hours. Then you can use the dough directly, or put it into the fridge for up to 24 hours. If you decide to go the fridge route, make sure to take the dough about 1 hour ahead of making tortillas, so it will have a chance to warm a little and be easier to shape.I think the tortillas become even easier to roll out the next day, and I usually put the dough into the fridge overnight.
- Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide it depending on the tortilla size you want. For taco-style tortillas, you can divide into 16 little balls, divide into 12 for medium tortillas, or into 10 for really big ones. (I have a 8-inch cast iron skillet, and dividing it into 12 gives me the best results!). Roll each piece into a ball.
- Cover the dough balls with a towel and let them rest for another 10 minutes or so. This step makes a huge difference. If the dough keeps shrinking back while rolling, it usually just needs more time to relax!
- Lightly flour your countertop and rolling pin. Roll each tortilla very thin, thinner than you think. They puff slightly once they hit the skillet and shrink a little too. Don’t stress too much about perfect circles, just keep in mind that you’ll need to fit them into your pan. I usually roll one tortilla while another cooks, and once you get into the rhythm, the process goes pretty quickly.
- Heat a dry cast iron skillet or heavy pan over medium heat and let it fully preheat before cooking. Cast iron especially can take 10 minutes or more to heat evenly. If the skillet isn’t hot enough, the tortillas cook too slowly and dry out before they brown properly.
- Cook each tortilla for about 60 seconds on the first side and another 60 seconds on the second side. If you made slightly thicker ones, you can go up to 90 seconds. You want bubbling and brown spots, but not crispy tortillas. Fresh-milled tortillas sometimes need a little longer than white flour tortillas, especially if they’re rolled slightly thicker, that’s my experience. If the tortillas brown too quickly, lower the heat slightly. If nothing happens after 30 seconds, raise the heat a bit. Quick cooking is what keeps tortillas soft.
- Immediately place cooked tortillas under a clean kitchen towel. This traps steam and keeps them soft. Tortillas that feel slightly stiff straight off the skillet usually soften after sitting covered for a few minutes.
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