Butter in Flour Tortillas?

Reader Veggie asks if it’s possible to substitute butter for shortening in flour tortillas. The answer is yes, and I expect butter would give flour tortillas a very nice warm and toasty flavor, though it won’t be anything like what most people are accustomed to. A down side to using butter is that it’s 17% water (shortening is 0% water), which means there’ll be more activated gluten in the finished dough than there would otherwise be, so the dough will be a little more elastic and more difficult to roll.