I'll try to channel my inner food blogger here.
Memories from childhood of crappy store bought tortillas. Blah, blah. Yadda, yadda, yadda. A bunch of crap that serves on purpose. and that's how Lisa and I ended up at the Spring 2025 Meat-up and trying H-E-B Butter Tortillas. Explaining how shallow and empty my life has been up until this moment.
They are really good tortillas, and it seemed to me that they should not be that hard to replicate. As it turns out they aren't. So if you're like me, and don't live within a thousand miles of a H-E-B, you can get pretty close at home. The best part is that you probably have all the ingredients aside from one in your pantry already. And the one you are missing is easily found at your local store.
The base recipe came from here.
The base recipe makes a perfectly fine tortillas, but lacks the intense butter flavor that the ones from H-E-B have. It also uses a stand mixer, and I don't like getting my stand mixer dirty when it doesn't seem necessary.
Enough of the background, here is the recipe I came up with.
Ingredients.
4 cups (480 grams) of AP flour
2 teaspoons (12 grams) of table salt
8 tablespoons of unsalted butter
1 1/3 cups of hot water
3 teaspoons of butter extract.
Makes 12-14 taco sized tortillas.
Directions.
Cube the butter into 16 pieces and add to the 1 1/3C water in a heat proof bowl. I used a 2C Pyrex measuring cup. Microwave the water and butter on high at 30 second intervals stirring in between until the water is hot, and the butter is melted.
After the water is hot and the butter melted, stir in the butter extract.
Combine all the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl, and give them a quick stir to combine.
Stir the water/butter mixture into the dry ingredients. Use spoon to stir everything until there is no dry flour left. The dough will be very sticky at this point.
Turn the dough out to a floured surface, and knead it with floured hand until you can form a smooth ball. Approximately 5 minutes.
Divide the dough ball in half and then squeeze your balls out and put them on a sheet tray lined with parchment paper.
You can see how this is done here.
Using a cupped hand, roll your balls on the counter until they have a smooth tight skin.
Cover the dough balls with a kitchen towel and let them rest for at least 45 minutes, and up to 2 hours. If you don't let them rest long enough, you will really struggle to get them to roll out decently.
10 minutes before rolling out your tortillas, preheat a cast iron or carbon steel pan on medium heat .
Working with one dough ball, flatten it out to form a 3" disc. Using a rolling pin, roll out the disk until it is very thin and about 10" in diameter. On my counter, I rolled them until I could see the counter pattern through the dough. If you have a white counter top, remodel your kitchen before starting this step. This is probably the hardest part of the whole process and will take some practice to get right.
Ope.
For reference, this was the last one of the batch, not the first. Abuela I am not.
Carefully peel the tortilla off the counter top and transfer it to the dry, pre-heated pan. Cook for 20-30 seconds depending on how hot your pan is and them give it a flip to cook the other side for about the same time. Be careful to not let any black spots develop. You are looking for golden brown and delicious. Not blackened and bitter here.
When fully cooked, transfer the tortilla to a plate and repeat the process with the rest of the dough balls, or until you really don't want to burn you fingers turning tortillas anymore. What? No you can't use a spatula! What kind of heathen are you?
This recipe scales very well. So feel free to halve or double it to meet your needs.
Memories from childhood of crappy store bought tortillas. Blah, blah. Yadda, yadda, yadda. A bunch of crap that serves on purpose. and that's how Lisa and I ended up at the Spring 2025 Meat-up and trying H-E-B Butter Tortillas. Explaining how shallow and empty my life has been up until this moment.
They are really good tortillas, and it seemed to me that they should not be that hard to replicate. As it turns out they aren't. So if you're like me, and don't live within a thousand miles of a H-E-B, you can get pretty close at home. The best part is that you probably have all the ingredients aside from one in your pantry already. And the one you are missing is easily found at your local store.
The base recipe came from here.
The base recipe makes a perfectly fine tortillas, but lacks the intense butter flavor that the ones from H-E-B have. It also uses a stand mixer, and I don't like getting my stand mixer dirty when it doesn't seem necessary.
Enough of the background, here is the recipe I came up with.
Ingredients.
4 cups (480 grams) of AP flour
2 teaspoons (12 grams) of table salt
8 tablespoons of unsalted butter
1 1/3 cups of hot water
3 teaspoons of butter extract.
Makes 12-14 taco sized tortillas.
Directions.
Cube the butter into 16 pieces and add to the 1 1/3C water in a heat proof bowl. I used a 2C Pyrex measuring cup. Microwave the water and butter on high at 30 second intervals stirring in between until the water is hot, and the butter is melted.
After the water is hot and the butter melted, stir in the butter extract.
Combine all the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl, and give them a quick stir to combine.
Stir the water/butter mixture into the dry ingredients. Use spoon to stir everything until there is no dry flour left. The dough will be very sticky at this point.
Turn the dough out to a floured surface, and knead it with floured hand until you can form a smooth ball. Approximately 5 minutes.
Divide the dough ball in half and then squeeze your balls out and put them on a sheet tray lined with parchment paper.
You can see how this is done here.
Using a cupped hand, roll your balls on the counter until they have a smooth tight skin.
Cover the dough balls with a kitchen towel and let them rest for at least 45 minutes, and up to 2 hours. If you don't let them rest long enough, you will really struggle to get them to roll out decently.
10 minutes before rolling out your tortillas, preheat a cast iron or carbon steel pan on medium heat .
Working with one dough ball, flatten it out to form a 3" disc. Using a rolling pin, roll out the disk until it is very thin and about 10" in diameter. On my counter, I rolled them until I could see the counter pattern through the dough. If you have a white counter top, remodel your kitchen before starting this step. This is probably the hardest part of the whole process and will take some practice to get right.
Ope.
For reference, this was the last one of the batch, not the first. Abuela I am not.
Carefully peel the tortilla off the counter top and transfer it to the dry, pre-heated pan. Cook for 20-30 seconds depending on how hot your pan is and them give it a flip to cook the other side for about the same time. Be careful to not let any black spots develop. You are looking for golden brown and delicious. Not blackened and bitter here.
When fully cooked, transfer the tortilla to a plate and repeat the process with the rest of the dough balls, or until you really don't want to burn you fingers turning tortillas anymore. What? No you can't use a spatula! What kind of heathen are you?
This recipe scales very well. So feel free to halve or double it to meet your needs.
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