How to Mix Prepared Tamale Dough (4 Steps)

Making tamales from scratch starts with making masa harina, or dough flour. Making masa harina comprises cooking hominy with lime, drying it and grinding it -- and all that comes before mixing the tamale dough. Using prepared dough flour -- the best type for tamales is coarser than that for tortillas -- -- cuts the prep time by over half. It's like the difference in using a boxed cake mix and making a cake from scratch. You still have to mix the dough with lard or shortening and season it to taste, but you'll have the tamales on the table, once you fix the filling, wrap everything in corn husks and steam them, in less than an hour.

Things You'll Need

Electric mixer
Vegetable shortening or lard
Salt

Prepared masa harina
Hot water or stock
Dried spices

Instructions

Whip 1 part lard or vegetable shortening with a pinch of salt until aerated, about 1 minute, using an electric mixer on medium-high speed. A little over a cup of lard constitutes 1 part in the basic tamale technique, and yields about 25 tamales.
Add 4 parts prepared masa harina to the lard, 1 part at a time, fully incorporating the previous addition of masa harina before adding the next. Lower the speed to medium-low.
Add 3 parts hot water or stock to the masa harina and lard and whip until incorporated, about 1 minute. Add an additional 1 part hot water or stock as needed for the batter to reach a consistency similar to a fluid -- but not loose and watery -- cake batter.
Taste the batter and adjust the seasoning as needed with salt and dried spices. Chill the tamale batter in the refrigerator for about 1 hour to refine the texture, if desired. If you decide to chill the batter, mix it one more time after you remove it from the refrigerator and adjust the consistency as needed to achieve the cake-batter-like consistency as before.

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