My family
is gluten free… kind of. Myra discovered
a number of years ago that she was allergic.
She was experiencing flu-like symptoms and was often very groggy in the
evening. At the recommendation of an acquaintance
who was allergic to gluten, she stopped eating gluten for a short period of
time and discovered that her symptoms went away. Any time she eats gluten now, her head gets
stopped up, she feels groggy, and not fully herself. So, no gluten for her.
Ellen is
currently struggling with eczema, which it turns out half of the population of
kids in Unalakleet have gone through as every parent has a story of battling
itchy kids. Gluten can be a possible
irritant as it can cause inflammation.
So, she is now off gluten.
Dad… well,
Dad does not feel like sitting in a dark closet eating toast by himself, and
though I am not entirely off of gluten (the school had left-over cinnamon rolls
the other day that called my name from across the hall), I have greatly reduced
my intake. In doing so, I have lost
almost 15 pounds, and Myra is very supportive of the idea of me never eating
gluten again. I guess those eight pieces
of bread I ate every day spread across three meals and snacks had an impact on
a body no longer swimming distances measured in miles.
So… gluten
free. For a baker who is used to
traditional whole wheat and white flour, gluten-free flour can be a lot like
working with wallpaper paste. It acts
nothing like its red-headed step-sibling (sure feels like the correct title in
a world going gluten free): gluten flour.
It has none of the binding, malleable characteristics that gluten gives
to flour.
Though
store-bought gluten free products are getting better than the cardboard that
was originally sold and labeled gluten free, they still have a long way to
go. Corn tortillas from the store have
never been what I would call palatable, and gluten free flour tortillas might
as well be just titled what they really are: rice cakes. They are brittle and flavorless.
I used to
really enjoy making whole-wheat tortillas before my family stopped digesting
them. The whole-wheat made for a great
texture, and the flavor of the fresh tortillas straight from the pan were such
that a little butter and they could be eaten by themselves. I went into a mini-mourning when we decided
to take Ellen off of gluten.
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| I just throw it all in together |
It was
worth one more try, and that is when I stumbled across this recipe:
2 cups
all-purpose gluten free flour (We use Pamelas)
1/3 cup Crisco
2 ¼ t yeast
¼ t salt
1 C water
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| Our kitchen power tool |
A stand-up
mixer is not necessary for this recipe, but we have one, and so why not. It is like my power tool for the kitchen
(insert Tim the Toolman Taylor man-grunt here).
I put all of the ingredients into my mixer bowl at once and gradually
beat them together at a low speed with the paddle attachment. As the mix becomes more moist, I increase the
speed on my Kitchen Aid to 2 or 3 and allow it to mix until it clumps into one
large ball around the paddle.
 |
| Dough should be clumped in a ball once fully mixed. |
At this
point, I preheat my skillet on medium low heat.
No oil is really needed in the pan as the Crisco aids in keeping the
tortillas from sticking. In this go
around as I cooked these tortillas, Myra had added some olive oil to the pan to
cook what we were going to use for a filling before discovering I needed the
pan. I left the oil in.
We have two
pieces of circular parchment paper that we just keep below our sink. They are our tortilla parchment papers. I found a round pot that would fit easily
into our skillet, traced it onto the parchment papers and cut them out. They help me size the tortillas for the pan,
and with the gluten free flour that can sometimes be sticky, they help me to
press out the tortilla without sticking them to the rolling pin or the pot
bottom (I have a redneck press system that I like).
For the pan
I am using, I take and make a ball of dough a little larger than a golf ball
and definitely smaller than a racquet ball.
I place the ball in the middle of one of my parchment paper rounds,
flatten the dough a little with my hand, and then place the other parchment
round on top. I then use a pot (the same
I used to make the parchment rounds) and press the dough with the pot and my
body weight. I shimmy the pot a little
in a circular turning motion to aid in pressing out the dough. This makes a perfectly round tortilla. If it is not as thin as I would like, I go
over it a couple times evenly with a rolling pin trying to keep its round
shape. I do have a tortilla press that
permanently lives in our cupboards and never comes out.
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| I used the pot for a pattern for my parchment paper rounds and then as a tortilla press |
I peel one
of the parchment papers and then place the tortilla dough side down into the
pan while still stuck to the other piece of parchment. As the tortilla cooks, it will release itself
from the paper which will easily pull away.
I cook the
tortilla around a minute per side (experiment with this as too done becomes
less malleable… they don’t take long to cook and so I have never accidentally
eaten a raw one). Fresh off the pan, they
are malleable, and way better flavored than their store-bought counterparts.
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| Finished product |
Left overs,
if we have any, are put into a ziplock once they are cool, and placed in the
fridge. I have never tried freezing them,
but guess it could be done the same way.
Honestly, with a three-year-old who steals them off the plate as soon as
they come off the pan, storage has never been an issue. Sometimes we make a batch of dough up and
place it in the fridge in a airproof container uncooked, and then pull the
dough out and fry up fresh ones as needed.
We have left uncooked dough in the fridge for a week with no problems.
We have
used these tortillas as taco and burrito shells, enchiladas, quesadillas, and
just spread butter on them and eaten them hot.
A whole-wheat
gluten filled tortilla they are not, but for those who can’t digest gluten,
that is precisely the point.
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| Tortilla thief |
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