Show latest post

Is there any way (without or with modification) to display the latest post from any category in full with a permalink and full content?

I have a recent posts mod – https://dev.wp-plugins.org/browser/recent-posts/branches/wp-1.5/ but this doesn’t permalink or show excerpts. I know I can set it to show 1 post per page in the settings but I only want 1 to show on the homepage. Could somebody please help me with the code?