True, once you've learned: how wet to make the dough, how small to make the dough balls, how thin to press the dough balls, how to peel the plastic from the pressed tortilla, how to release the pressed tortilla from your hand onto the hot pan, how long to leave the tortilla so that they'll inflate like balloons when flipped, … in other words, there's a knack to it.
(And people who make tortillas balloon so reliably — that they can slice them open, and pour an egg inside to cook — have developed true mastery.)
Also, making your own tortillas is very time consuming.
I don't make tortillas, but I do make pitas, which have a similar ballooning thing. The best way I've found to get them to puff is to preheat the broiler and a cast-iron pan, then put the dough disk on the pan and the pan under the broiler.
Cooking it from both sides like once at that gives me spectacular puffs every time. I'm not sure why I can't get that from the stove top -- overcooking? undercooking? too high a temperature? -- but this setup works great for me.
(On my stove, with my pans, under my broiler. This all seems to have so many variables that maybe any advice other than "practice on what works for you" is useless.)
Or because it's your own kitchen and not a Michelin star restaurant you can just mess up literally every step of the process and still get something delicious. You act like you have to study the press for years before attempting to make your first tortilla not supervised by your grandma.
Or because it's your own kitchen and not a Michelin star restaurant you can just mess up literally every step of the process, still get something delicious, and people's reactions will be "wow you made these? They're so good."
True, once you've learned: how wet to make the dough, how small to make the dough balls, how thin to press the dough balls, how to peel the plastic from the pressed tortilla, how to release the pressed tortilla from your hand onto the hot pan, how long to leave the tortilla so that they'll inflate like balloons when flipped, … in other words, there's a knack to it.
(And people who make tortillas balloon so reliably — that they can slice them open, and pour an egg inside to cook — have developed true mastery.)
Also, making your own tortillas is very time consuming.