Frying pan bread

or ... A quick-fix breakfast bread for the disorganised

Sooner or later, if you're making all your own bread, you're likely to arrive at that moment, immediately before a meal, when there's NO BREAD and NO TIME. Unless you are super-organised. Which I'm not.

Yesterday, I was out at an all-day course. In the train on the way back from Oxford, I planned the cooking which needed to be sorted before we went out to a community party. Get supper started, make a dozen canapes to take to the party, organise the bread to be made on return from party.

Supper, easy. Canapes, less easy: returned to find Lucius had eaten the last of the bread which was to be the toasted basis of my cheesy morsels. More time than planned therefore spent on canapes. No bread prep. Never mind, I'll make a quick loaf when we get back. Party. Dinner. Collapse of cook, no thought of bread.

Fast forward to this morning, Saturday breakfast, the culinary highlight of Lucius's week (seriously). No bread.

This is what you do:

Mix equal quantities of interesting flour of your choice with white self-raising flour. Add a little salt. Perhaps baking powder, only be careful, because you don't want that slightly acrid taste of too much bp, so I don't bother, less light aka leaden is fine here, because this whole method is a compromise. Add enough water to make a soft dough (if you add too much, chuck in a bit more flour). As there's no yeast here, you can add it straight from the cold tap. Knead lightly and form into a round, rolling or pressing it as thin as you can. Fry gently in a little olive oil, the less the better ... but dry frying isn't a good idea here, as it burns. It needs at least five minutes on each side for the flour to cook through, so if it starts to catch, flip it over and turn down the heat.

It's good with an egg on top, not bad with marmalade. If you use decent flour (and if you're making your own bread, you're more or less bound to have interesting flour in your larder), it's better than bought. And I suppose you could also use this to accompany a curry, a quick naan-ish bread, although I've never done that.