CucinaPro Electric Tortilla Maker - 10" Pitas, Chapati, Roti, Flatbread, Non-Stick Cooking Plates with Ready Light and Cord Wrap

This machine is incredible! I have no idea why there are any complaints. It could be how or what they are using it for. Let me explain what I bought it for. I love homemade tortillas but cannot roll them into a circle to save my life. You cannot use a regular press like the one for corn tortillas, it simply will not work. The dough just will not expand and the dough just shrinks right back up. So, I bought this to try out. OMG!!! It is so awesome. I plug it in, wait about 3-4 minutes, roll a ball of tortilla dough in my hand, place it in the machine and press down firmly for 2 second, pick it up and press it again for 2 seconds and BAM, perfect ROUND tortilla. This thing will make them small or to the entire diameter, all depends on how many times and how hard you push. I just make the shape by pressing down twice then take it out and put the tortilla on my cast iron griddle to complete the cooking. DO NOT HESITATE, BUY THIS THING!!!! The reason it WORKS is because it uses the moisture in the tortilla and it "steam presses" the tortilla into the perfect round shape. It only takes 4 seconds. You CAN leave the tortilla on the cooker and it will cook it to a golden brown. I just like the cast iron because I am old school. If you leave it in the cooker to finish cooking, it will make your tortillas crispy the longer it is in there. Almost like a quesadilla. If I could give this 10 stars I would. Trust me, if you roll tortillas now and hate it, this will change your life. Home made tortillas are NO LONGER a pain to make. I even make a bunch of dough and refrigerate whatever I don't use that day. I can put cold dough in the press and have the exact same results.

The media could not be loaded. Easily break. Need to improve plastic quality or use steel parts. I had bad experience

Make my life easy

It is a very substantial appliance and it works as it is supposed to work. I use it for tortillas. The handle is not going to break or bend and the plates are exactly flat and come together with no space in between. It has 1000 watts, so it does not dawdle in heating up. I wish I could choose a 3.5 star rating. And I suppose if the appliance was engineered to allow less human interference and human error, I would give it four stars. But there is a LOT of opportunity for human intervention and a lot of iffiness and variables to deal with. Making acceptable tortillas is not a given with this appliance--any more than doing it by hand.It has some shortcomings:--A safety concern: The instructions say to cool the appliance in the open position. Well, the plates are large and they get very hot. I wish there was a safer way to cool it down, without leaving it open. I'm afraid to walk away from the appliance when it is hot and open, for fear someone will touch it by accident. Our cats are enthralled by tortilla-making (maybe the smell?) and I can see them hopping up onto the hot open face.--The cord is very short: I understand the need for a short cord, but 24" is really restrictive. It is shorter than you would picture it, so check your distance before purchasing.--The manual and small section of recipes is not very helpful. In fact, it contradicts itself in places. Plus all the instructions are for small 6" tortillas. What's with that? This appliance can produce almost 10" tortillas. This is not the easiest appliance to master, so very detailed and exact directions would have been appropriate. There are some tips (where I noticed the contradictions), but they are confusing and left me with more questions that I had to begin with.I must say (although I know Amazon does not like you to mention other reviews in your own review) I am very appreciative of the advice from some of the other reviewers. Without all that extra input I'd be having a tougher time trying to make decent tortillas. But I must also say: As difficult as this appliance is to master, it still beats rolling tortillas by hand! But. if you approach this appliance thinking you are going to make perfect tortillas right off the bat, you will be disappointed. Getting the results you expect will take a good amount of trial and error and a lot of practice. If you lack patience, you should probably stick with store-bought.

Use it for making whole wheat chapatis from fresh-ground flour. We use a bread machine to knead the dough for 10 minutes and then let it condition for 30 minutes. Roll into 2" balls, squash them in the press. Flip the chapati end to end after maybe 30 seconds to cook both sides evenly. Then pull it out and finish with a gas flame if you like it to puff up big and steam-cook from the inside. Puffing up seems mostly to be a matter of water ratio. We use 2 cups of wheat berries to 1 cup of water, add 2 TBSP olive oil and a heaping teaspoon of Crazy Salt. You get a soft dough. Fair warning: this type of chapati/roti can be addictive.If you're doing arepas, don't squash them a lot. The dual cooking surfaces pull moisture out of doughs quickly, and make them thinner.The lower surface heats up to around 375 F, the upper surface is always 50-60 degrees cooler. (Measured with Fluke Instruments infrared temperature gun.) I ignore the warnings to heat up the unit only in the open position, because A) it heats up more evenly when closed, and B) the non-stick coating is unaffected because C) the internal thermostat regulates the temperature whether the unit is open or closed. That said, you should ALWAYS follow the Owners Manual and NEVER EVER heat up the unit closed unless you are A) confident in your own common sense and also have a temperature gun to confirm my reasoning and make a decision for yourself.I think the biggest safety/convenience feature they could add would be a buzzer that sounded every 10 minutes or so, because it is NOT HARD to leave this unit plugged in accidentally (Kinda' like waffle irons, infrared space heaters etc...) Is it really dangerous to leave it plugged in? No. Is it an expensive waste of electricity? Definitely!By the way, the non-stick surface is good. If dribs or drabs of gooey stuff sticks, just let it cook a bit longer, and it will dry up and slide off. Then again, we've been careful not to use excessive oil or other things that are known to be aggressively sticky.

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