By CINDY MAHAN

By CINDY MAHAN

Rappahannock News Staff Writer

There is nothing so satisfying as making something from nothing.

Making yeast bread is like performing a magic act. Only three ingredients are required to make bread — flour, water, and yeast — though usually salt is added. These are the only ingredients in French bread, which is, 1 believe, the best bread in the world. It is so versatile, and can be made into many different shapes, from mini-baguettes (the long skinny loaves), to batards (fatter, long loaves), to huge round loaves. The French will even form the bread into fougasse, which is a free form bread with many holes in it, sort of a lattice design.

The French take their bread making very seriously. To this day, every village and town has its own boulangerie (bakery), and every baker has his or her specialties. Who can dispute that one of the most satisfying meals in the world is a loaf of bread, a hunk of cheese, some fresh fruit and a bottle of wine?

The first bread I learned to make, 20 years ago, was the classic French bread. 1 used the recipe out of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The recipe is several pages long and has drawings to guide the baker through it. Making that French bread taught me many of the basic principles of bread making that I use when making all kinds of bread today.

Patience is the most important thing to learn when making yeast bread. Probably every baker has stories of the “bricks” they made while learning to make bread, because they didn’t allow the dough to rise long enough between risings or before baking.

Just as important as patience is kneading the dough properly and long enough. I learned kneading from my grandmother when 1 was 10 years old. When she made bread, she would knead for a while, then I would do it for a while, and we would go back and forth until the dough was kneaded enough. The kneading is done when the dough becomes smooth and elastic (you’ll know it when you see it). It will be lively, and some doughs are