The Simplest Bread in the World! 'Panpati'

Looking for an easy bread recipe? How about a bread you can make with just two ingredients?! (And you don't even dirty your hands making it!)

I call this 'Panpati'. After travelling in India and seeing how amazingly simple the recipe for making chapati is, I made some at home... It was great, but it was a pain for a beginner like me to make it. (You get messy hands and you need quite a bit of practice to get the dough thin enough before you cook it)

'There has to be a better way...' I thought.

How convenient would it be if you could mix your 'dough' in a very watery mix, like a pancake, and pour it into the pan. I tried it, and it worked!

So we have a fusion of pancakes and Indian chapati - Panpati!

You don't get your hands dirty, the washing up is a breeze, and you can make this in a boat, tiny home, or RV, with a camping stove or even on a camp fire.

It is made from only two ingredients: water and flour, so is perfect as an emergency 'survival bread'. Stuck on a boat with no supplies? Make some Panpati! (You can even try making it with seawater if you are really desperate!)

Watch this one minute video to see how you can make the world's easiest bread!

Watch the 1 minute video showing you how to do this here.

Step 1: Make the Mix

You will need:

1. Flour (any kind)
2. Water
3. A non-stick pan
4. A hob, gas stove, camping stove, or even a fire with three rocks in it to hold the pan!

To keep this ridiculously easy, we'll mix our flour and water by volume. You can make as much, or a little mix as you need (this is the simplest bread in the world, so every step is easy!)

Mix your flour and water in a container. Add one part flour to two parts water, by volume. This isn't an exact science so don't worry about beaing really accurate.

Stir the mix with a spoon (or a stick if you are making this as survival bread!) :-)

Don't worry if there are a few lumps in it - it doesn't matter!

Step 2: Make Your Bread!

Pour the mix into a non-stick pan.

Place on your heat source and make some bread!

As the water in our bread mixture boils, it expands to 1600 times its original volume. This expanding water vapour aerates the bread as it solidifies and this is how this bread 'rises' as you cook it. This is why we don't need yeast or baking soda - our watery mix magically has this covered!

After a while you can flip it over like you would with a pancake and cook the other side until it's ready.

Voila!

Congratulations: we just made the world's simplest bread!

Did you enjoy this instructable? If you did, please consider voting for it in the 'Bread' contest. Thank you! :-)

Chris

Comments

[LordofHosts]

This is just incredibly simple. Good for if your craving bread, but you don't want to wait for the dough to rise. Just mix flour and water and cook.

[Random Chris]

Hi there, thank you very much! It doesn't get much simpler than flour & water. :-)

[carlossaudejoinville]

Great idea. I like the no mess part.

Used to do something like that while scouting. It's called Hunter's bread. The same, less water, no pan. Just mix flour and water until it does not stick to your hands, wrap around a stick, push one end into the ground by the fire.

[simonlorlab]

Hi Random Chris. See, I'm a terrible cook so even with the simplest recipe in the world I can make a disaster... and that's what happened... twice! It looked great before I try to eat it, but I soon realized I totally messed up. The interior of the bread was all gooey and near liquid under the thin, good looking crust.

What did I do wrong? I'm thinking I should lower the intensity of the fire and cook it slower. If you have any suggestions I would really appreciate it because right now I'm pretty ashamed to have failed The Simplest Bread in the World.

[Intensescroot]

I couldn't stand it, I made a single, big flour and milk hoecake with vanilla in it, fried it in brown butter and put some old-fashioned cane syrup on it. I'm eating it now...YUM!

[ElectroFrank]

Your suggestion of seawater may not be so good:

1) Seawater contains so much salt as to be effectively poisonous - you have to drink far more fresh water to get the excess salt out of your system.

2) Seawater contains all the things that humans pump into it - nuff said !-)

[Random Chris]

The addition of seawater is an old trick for making boat bread. Seawater is roughly 3.5% salt, so if you used pure seawater your bread would be too salty. Probably a 50/50 mix would be perfect. This would help you to conserve fresh water if it were in short supply (If your fresh water is in short supply then cooking should be the last thing on your mind: without water you will die in a few days. You can survive weeks without any food at all.)

I wouldn't worry about other 'nasties' in the water as the water is being boiled while you make the bread, killing any germs in there.

[Intensescroot]

Compared to all the caustic minerals and acids the Earth pumps into it, we're small change.

[YourMagesty]

I might just try this. Living frugally, this would be welcome as the price of bread is obscene! I try to stock up when I go to the Dollar store! However, it does take up alot of freezer space when I do that. YOUR idea would preclude that problem. Your 'slices' could be used for sandwiches, wraps, hot dog rolls, etc. Yes, I'm definitely going to give this a whirl! THANK YOU for sharing with us! : )

[Random Chris]

You're very welcome, let me know how it goes! :-)

[Intensescroot]

Those in my photo are whole wheat and rice flour, A little butter and honey tops them off well.

[YourMagesty]

Good to know...Thanks!

[wobbler]

I make these camping. They aren't the best of breads but they have the advantage that you just carry the raw material and add water and they can be cooked on a frying pan or even over an open fire. You can make them more tasty by adding sultanas, raisons or similar. Alternatively, make it in to beer bread by adding beer into the mix to give it a bit of lift. The other advantage of doing beer bread is it doesn't take a full bottle or can but once it's opened you don't want to waste it, do you?

[Random Chris]

Great tip wobbler, I'll give the beer a shot! :-)

[mrsmerwin]

have you compared all purpose flour to self rising? I have some corn flour, rice flour and some coconut flour. Any ideas if these will work--or do I have to set my kids to trying them for me?

[Random Chris]

Hello! It's worked with all the flour I've tried it with. I would say it would work with any flour - the water vapour from the boiling water will make the bread rise and heating the flour will cook it once the water has evaporated off.

I'd be really curious to know how it turns out so please get back to me if you try any of the other 'less common' flours. If you get the chance, a photo would be great too so others can see the results.

P.S. Your kids are getting a great education with real life experiments / tasks - good on you!

Cheers, Chris

[mrsmerwin]

the problem is that they are teenagers and their cooperation is not guaranteed. They can get temperamental at times. Other times they are willing to play weird games with me--'does this work' is one of those games.

[Random Chris]

You are lucky (or more likely doing a great job as a parent!) as some teenagers refuse to cooperate ever, for any reason, under any circumstances, or under any pretext. :-D

[mrsmerwin]

My kids are great. I got a hug from each of them this evening when we were in the presence of their friends.

[Random Chris]

Fantastic! I think that says as much about you as it does about them. :-)