Recipe: Cinnamon Tortilla Chips

This is my favorite last minute, want to impress, unexpected company, on a budget dessert. If you’re like me and always keep tortillas in your fridge and ice cream in your freezer, you will never be more than five minutes away from fancy sweetness.

To start you need to set up your work station. On your stove you’ll need a pot to fry in. I like to use a straight walled pan. It gives me lots of room for frying but doesn’t take up too much oil. You can fry with any oil that has a high smoke point, sunflower and peanut are great, but so is old fashioned vegetable oil. I fry with a mix of sunflower and vegetable. Get that heating up, and then set up three plates close by. One covered with paper towels for draining the oil, one with cinnamon sugar, and one empty for the finished snacks.

When your oil is hot enough, it should start sizzling as soon as you put something in it. Don’t let the oil get too hot or you’ll burn the tortilla before it gets nice and puffy and crispy. You’ll have to fine tune it a little as you go. You want your tortillas to be puffy and lightly golden brown. Remove from the oil with tongs and let drain on the paper towels for a few minutes.

While still hot, toss them in cinnamon sugar. If your willpower is good, you can place them on the empty plate while you keep working, or even directly into a cookie jar. Otherwise, just put them in your mouth.

These make a wonderful little adornment to just about any dessert. A nice crunchy contrast for a gooey cake, a sweet spoon to eat up ice cream or pudding, or even just as a midday snack all on their own. They never last long enough in my house for me to get terribly creative with them.