Tried making my own tortillas to save money, wound up spending more on flour

I saw all those videos about how cheap homemade tortillas are so I gave it a shot last Sunday. Bought a 5 pound bag of masa harina for $4.50 and made a batch of 12 tortillas. But after I messed up the first batch and had to toss it, plus the extra butter and salt I used, each tortilla came out to like 40 cents. That's more than the store brand packs that are 25 cents per tortilla. I guess the lesson is that homemade isn't always cheaper if you factor in the learning curve and waste. Has anyone else had a DIY kitchen project that totally backfired on the budget?

3 comments

3 Comments

kim9631mo agoMost Upvoted

My sister tried doing homemade flour tortillas and her kitchen ended up looking like a flour bomb went off lol, she found masa in her hair for three days. Honestly the store ones are so cheap I don't think it's worth the cleanup hassle unless you're really picky about taste.

olivia_rivera881mo ago

Why is it always the hair that gets the worst of it though? I swear every time I bake, my hair turns into a flour magnet and I find patches of dough stuck in my ponytail hours later. I tried doing tortillas once and ended up with masa all up my arms and even weirdly inside my watch band, took forever to clean out. Honestly, for how cheap and decent the store ones are, I'll just keep buying those and save myself the cleanup headache.

hugo_schmidt1mo ago

Heard somewhere that the key is using a press with plastic sheets so the dough doesn't stick to anything, supposedly keeps the mess way down. Still seems like a lot of fuss for something I can get for like 3 bucks. My buddy tried it once and said the taste difference wasn't even that huge for the effort.