How Do You Turn a Ball of Tortilla Dough into a Thin, Round Tortilla?

How Does a Tortilla Press Flatten a Ball of Dough?

A tortilla press is a simple tool: two flat, round plates joined by a hinge, each about 8 inches (around 20 cm) across. Presses are usually made of cast iron, cast aluminum, or wood [1]. You set a ball of dough between the plates and bring the handle down, which crushes the ball into a disc. Wikipedia notes that a press generally takes less force than a rolling pin [1].

Dough would stick to the metal, so cooks usually put plastic, wax paper, or butter paper above and below the ball [1]. Because the dough never touches the plates, a traditional press rarely needs washing [1].

A simple way to picture it: squeeze a ball of soft modeling clay between two sheets of cloth and it spreads into a round patty. Real masa is softer than clay, but the idea is the same. Pressing works well for masa because the dough tends to stay where it is pushed, a point we come back to in the section on wheat dough.

How Were Tortillas Flattened Before Presses Existed?

With hands, mostly. Gustavo Arellano, a Los Angeles Times columnist who has written books about tacos, put it this way in an interview in the food magazine Taste: “the first tortilla presses were hands.” Tortillas, he said, had always been handmade, with a rolling pin, a bottle, or the palms [2]. In the article, Arellano dates the press itself to a little over a century ago, based on the records of the first Mexican restaurants, and says presses “really took off” in restaurants [2].

That fits the problem a restaurant has. A home cook can make each tortilla a little different. A kitchen serving many tables needs every one to have a similar size and thickness, and a press makes that easier. The sources say the press spread in restaurants; they do not say that home cooks stopped shaping tortillas by hand, and many still do.

One caution: this part of the story comes from a single interview, so treat the “over a century” date as one writer’s reading of restaurant records, not a precise invention date.

Why Does Wheat Dough Spring Back When You Press It?

Tortillas can also be made from wheat flour, and these are common in northern Mexico and the United States, among other places. If you press wheat dough in a tortilla press, it often does not spread well and tends to shrink in on itself into a smaller circle [3].

The cause is gluten. When wheat flour and water are mixed, two proteins, glutenin and gliadin, form a stretchy network called gluten. According to North Dakota State University Extension, glutenin gives dough its elastic quality, so it springs back, and gliadin lets it stretch [4]. Think of a rubber band: pull it and it wants to return. Pressed wheat dough does something similar, only slower. Corn masa does not form a wheat-style gluten network. A food writer describes it as having the soft, malleable feel of play dough, which is why it is easier to press [3].

So wheat dough is usually stretched out gradually with a rolling pin, which lets the gluten lengthen gently and keeps the circle flat. The same article also advises letting flour tortilla dough rest and hydrate for a couple of hours before dividing it [3]. A caution about the evidence: these statements are cooking advice from a food magazine plus a university explanation of gluten in general. Neither is an experiment comparing the two doughs. Corn dough can also be rolled with a pin, so a press is a convenience, not a requirement.

How Did Machines Learn to Make Round Tortillas?

When a business needs thousands of tortillas a day, even a press is too slow. According to the Wikipedia page on tortilla machines, the earliest patent it lists is from 1904, to Evarardo Rodríguez Arce and Luis Romero. Their machine formed dough balls into square tortillas and was not commercially successful [5].

The same page credits the Mexican inventor Fausto Celorio Mendoza with what it calls the first automatic tortilla machine, in 1947. It pressed dough into round flats and carried them through three ovens, making about one tortilla per minute. Working with an engineer, Alfonso Gándara, Celorio improved it, and by 1963 the machines could make 132 kg (291 lb) of tortillas per hour [5]. These dates and figures reportedly come from a Mexican food-industry history and a news article, which I did not read, so treat them as reported rather than confirmed.

What does a modern line do? A U.S. patent for a dough “sheeter,” filed in 1995 by the company Heat and Control, describes the basic idea. The masa is squeezed between two rollers that turn in opposite directions, called pinch rolls, into a continuous sheet, and a cutter roll presses against one of the rollers and cuts out the shapes [6]. The patent adds a clever detail: if the cutter roll turns slightly slower or faster than the front roller, the cut shape is stretched or squeezed a little, so an oval can be nudged toward a nearly perfect circle [6]. This is one company’s patent, not a survey of how all factories work today.

Why Does Thickness Decide Whether a Tortilla Puffs on the Griddle?

Thin and round is not only about looks. On a comal, the flat griddle traditionally used for tortillas, a well-made corn tortilla sometimes puffs up like a small pillow. The masa company Masienda explains that the puff comes from moisture trapped in the middle of the tortilla turning to steam and pushing outward [7]. If the tortilla is too thick, the steam cannot lift the weight of the dough. If it is very thin, it tears [7].

That company also gives a few tips. Press once, turn the dough 180 degrees or flip it, and press again to even out the thickness. Cook on a hot surface, around 400 to 500°F (about 200 to 260°C) on a home stove, though wood-fired clay comales in Oaxaca average about 650°F (about 340°C). Cook one side, flip, then flip back to the first side, which is when the puff happens [7]. To test whether dough is wet enough, roll a small ball and flatten it with a finger. Cracked edges mean it needs more water [7].

These are a seller’s cooking tips, not lab results, and the same page says a tortilla that does not puff can be just as delicious [7]. Still, it shows why one task, getting dough thin and even, ties together the palm, the press, and the cutter roll.

How Can You Read a Tortilla’s Shape for Clues About How It Was Made?

• Next time you have a tortilla, look closely at its edge. Is it perfectly round, a little uneven, or marked with tiny ridges? Does the thickness change from the middle to the edge? Guess how it was made, then notice that shape alone cannot prove it: a careful hand and a press can both make a round tortilla.
• If you see a tortilla that puffed, gently open it. The top and bottom layers have separated, and the gap is where the steam was. Any cooking on a hot stove or griddle should be done with an adult.
• Try the dough test with modeling clay or soft dough: press a ball flat between two sheets of plastic. Does it stay flat or creep back? What does that tell you about how the material behaves when pressed?
• Read the abstract of the patent [6] and find the sentence about changing the cutter speed. Why would a slightly slower cutter make an oval rounder?

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