Knowledge Base > Char Nolan - Ask Me Anything (Office Half Hour)
Char Nolan - Ask Me Anything (Office Half Hour)
This event was on
Tuesday, October 21, 2025 at 11:00 am Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern
Join Chef Char Nolan in her virtual office as she welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to ask anything – from cooking techniques to cou… Read More.
Question:
I can't seem to get the tortillas to puff up so they never get completely cook in the middle. Help?
— Sue Michaels
Answer:
Hopefully you have a tortilla press because using a tortilla press and putting the masa between two pieces of either, uh, wax paper or parchment paper will give you the exact thinness that you want. And do you bake them in the oven or do you put them in the frying pan? And I can also tell you that having spent a lot of time in Honduras, uh, people cook their tortillas on the flame of their stove. So I'm gonna guess, um, that I wonder if there's enough moisture in the tortillas and I wonder if there is enough heat. And, um, how well do you mix the dough and if you need it or not. So to tortilla press, I bake mine on a, um, uh, sheet pan in the oven and they come out really well. If you do bake them in the oven, have you checked the temperature of your oven? And do you use an internal thermometer to make sure that the heat is correct? Those would be the three things that I know. I think after you bake them, before you serve them, I will say if you throw them in the air fryer, they're definitely gonna get puffy. And also remember that sometimes when, when commercial tortillas are purchased, they do have some preservatives or lime and other things. So just keep trying. You're gonna, you're gonna find that level of, uh, tortilla perfection that you're looking for. So it sounds like you're on the right track using, uh, Bob's Red Mill, which is my favorite brand of anything.