Sprouted Grain Flour Tortillas

I'm excited to taste my new experiment with sprouted wheat/spelt. I sprouted them separately and then ground them together-keeping the flour in the freezer.

Flour tortillas:

2 C. flour-sprouted grain
1 t. salt-unrefined
1/4 C. Lard - Update: or use 5 T. Butter and cut back on the water by a teaspoon.
1/2 C. Water-warm

Toss with fork to make a stiff dough and knead thoroughly. Coat with olive oil, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate overnight or at least 4 hours. Divide into 8 pieces and roll out using arrowroot.

Heat a griddle to a medium hot setting and cook each tortilla for about 25 seconds on each side. I used a cast iron griddle and just left it hot between each tortilla because it took me more time than that to roll each one out. I did roll several and stacked them raw while the skillet heated up and that worked too. I spread butter on each as I removed it and stacked them, covering them with a towel.

These are delicious and the texture is very soft and pliable, not what I expected from whole grain dough! I believe the sprouting caused several enhancements in the grain. Neutralizing the phytates (an important nutritional process), taking the bitterness out of the flavor, and allowing the soft texture.

Update 2-6-2010 I did use butter for a batch and increased from 4 T to 5 T since butter has water in it and lard doesn't. I also learned that the ball of dough should be like soft playdoh which rolls out much faster and more easily. I used arrowroot to roll them and found that I could stack all 8 tortillas in their raw state before I began to fry them on the dry griddle.