Conversation Lesson: Speaking English in REAL LIFE | Let’s Bake Break Together!

In this lesson you’ll come along with me as I bake sourdough bread! It’s a ton of fun and you’ll be working on speaking English all the way along!

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Video Transcript:

Today you’re going to join my family at the dinner table and we’re going to study some real English conversation while we make bread.

Who wants a piece?

Me!

Everybody wants a piece.

This bread takes time to make so we need to go back in time 2 days.

To start, it’s a super simple quick step. Take your sourdough starter.

I’m Rachel, I have a background in opera singing and I’ve been teaching the American accent to non-native speakers for over 20 years. Scan this QR code or go to rachelenglish.com/free to get my free course, The Top Three Ways to Master the American Accent. It will blow your mind. It will give you totally new ideas on how to get the sound you’ve always wanted.

Take your sourdough starter, which is all bubbly, I just pulled it from my refrigerator and I’m putting in, shoot, I can never remember if it’s 20 or 25. 20. Definitely 20. I put in 20 grams. You’re going to hear a lot of numbers in this video but especially twenty. Notice how I don’t pronounce that second T in twenty. It’s very common to drop the second T in this word. So it’s not twenty but it’s twenty or twenty-five. Whenever you have a number like twenty-five, forty-three or sixty-four, it should always follow this musical pattern. So, gliding up and down and then up and down. All smooth.

Twenty-five

You might even want to exaggerate that up down shape of stress to make your speaking even more clear.

Twenty-five

I can never remember if it’s twenty or twenty-five. Twenty. Definitely twenty. I put in twenty grams. And then I can use this to make more bread later or other things I like to make with my starter. Popovers, sourdough popovers, sourdough pancakes and waffles. Everyone loves those. Okay, this is probably going to be too much. It’s really goopy, isn’t it?

That is goopy. Okay, that is too much but we’re calling it close enough.

Goopy. What a great vocabulary word. This simply means sticky. Another similar word, gooey. Goopy, gooey, sticky. I could have also said gluey. Having a consistency like glue. Another great similar word, gloppy. All of these mean something that’s sticky and the consistency is part liquidy, part solid, just really sticky.

It’s really goopy, isn’t it?

That is goopy. Okay, that is too much but we’re calling it close enough.

This is a good scale. I had a crappy one first that I got rid of.

Crappy is a slang way to say not very good. Bad quality. I had a crappy scale. I didn’t like it so I bought a nicer one. Crappy.

I’m going to press the tare button which zeros it out and now I’m adding 100 grams of warm water. So easy. Oops, went over. I never go over when I’m doing it by myself.

I’m going to scoop some out because I feel like being more precise.

If you’re being precise, you’re being very exact, very careful. For example, I’m not going to put in 101 grams or 99 grams, I want to put in 100 grams. I’m being very precise.

Because I feel like being more precise.

And then I’m going to stir that. And then finally, I’m going to tare it again.

The word ‘tare’. T-A-R-E. Like I said before, I press this button and it zeros out my scale. So, if I put a bowl on it but I only want to know the weight of what’s inside the bowl, I put the bowl on the scale and then I press tare. This word is pronounced just like the word T-E-A-R. This is a verb that means for example, to divide. I think of tearing a piece of paper in half. But what’s weird is t-e-a-r, tear is also pronounced tear, which would be what comes out of your eyes when you’re crying. So, tare a scale, tear a piece of paper and a tear that you cry.

I’m going to tare it again and add 100 g of flour. It’s about three scoops. One, two and a little bit more, almost it. Oh, I need one more gram. There we go, nailed it.

Remember how I was trying to be so precise? If you nailed it, that means you did it so well. I wanted to get 100 grams, I got exactly 100 grams. I nailed it. You can use it in other ways. Let’s say David, my husband is making a new recipe and everybody loves the meal. I can say “Wow David, you really nailed it.”

There we go, nailed it. And now I am going to mix this up and I’m going to cover it and I’m going to let it just sit on my counter for 12 hours.

So many gonna reductions there. Going to becomes gonna in spoken English. But also did you notice how I said counter instead of counter? This is just like 20, instead of 20. It’s pretty common to drop the T after an N in American English. Counter.

And I’m going to cover it and I’m going to let it just sit on my counter for 12 hours.

It’s been about 12 hours, this is what it looks like. Nice and bubbly. And now we have another super simple step. Put it on, tare it out, I’m putting in 20 again. Perfect. It’s just almost perfect. 21, good enough. Switch it out, tare. Put in 20. So the reason why I’m doing this twice is because I’m actually doubling my recipe because it doesn’t take double the effort at this point to double it but you get double the bread so you might as well right?

Now, here’s what’s sad. All this goes in the compost bin. Can’t use this for anything. Well, I guess you could I guess I could keep just making more batches of bread couldn’t I? That would get to be too much. Okay, and then it’s just 100 of warm water. Close enough. 101. I’ll live with 1% error. 100 g of water. 99. Why can’t I just average the two?

One more little drip. 101.

Alright, let me scrape this off so I don’t get too much extra starter on there. It is so sticky. And then I like to mix it up before I put my flour in. 100 of flour and we’re done. We’re done for the day. We did everything we need to do to have fresh delicious bread but not tomorrow because there’s still a lot that we have to do tomorrow. So I’m going to finish doing this, putting in my flour, mixing it up and then I’m going to cover it up and leave it out overnight.

Gonna. More gonna reductions. Let’s listen again.

Mixing it up and then I’m gonna cover it up and leave it out overnight.

And also, why don’t you think about what you’re gonna do tomorrow? Pause the video and practice the sentence. Tomorrow I’m gonna bake bread.

Okay, so the next morning I brought my husband David to teach him how to do this. So, step one, get a big bowl.

Do you remember when we got these? Do you remember where?

IKEA.

No.

No.

We were wandering Chinatown in New York City.

Oh yeah, that place.

Restaurant supply store, great place to get this kind of thing. So useful, I use it all the time.

So this is what my, I forget what this is called, it might be called a sponge but I kind of forget. My this thing looks like. I forgot to get my spatula. Let’s grab the spatula. Luckily, the spatula drawer is right here! Dadadada!

Okay, so now the way the cookbook says to do this, the bread book is it says you’re supposed to test this by floating a little bit in water but I never do that because I can tell by looking at it that it’s good.

Now, I’m doubling. Actually each one of these is already two loaves. So by doubling, I’m making four loaves of bread. So, if you live in Philadelphia give me a call and I’ll drop you off a loaf because this is more than I need.

Alright, so that’s the first thing. Now we need to add warm water. Fill that up.

Lukewarm or warm warm?

Um, what is the difference between lukewarm and warm warm for you?

Which one is warmer?

Warm.

Well, let’s do halfway between.

Lukewarm means kind of warm. Sort of warm. Not warm warm, certainly not hot but also not cool. Lukewarm is less hot than warm. Another word we use for this is tepid. That’s another great vocabulary word. Tepid, means moderately warm.

How much?

Oh, just fill it up beacause I’m going to be precise when I’m using the scale.

Hear that? Precise. I’m going to be exact.

That’s why we use the scale. It’s more precise than a measuring cup.

Alright, so 700 grams. Do you want to do it?

Okay.

Okay. 700 grams exactly. Don’t mess up.

Exactly. There’s a dropped T in this word it’s pretty common to pronounce it with no T sound at all. Exactly. And you’ll actually hear this word again later in this video, listen for that dropped T. Exactly.

What’s your stress level right now?

High.

David’s favorite thing is when I ask him to be in a video.

And I hate baking because you have to be exact.

Oh! That’s okay 701.

It’s okay. It’s okay if you do 701.

Oh! Way over. Way! Time to scoop some out. Okay, 700 exactly. Okay. Now, mix it up with our spatula. It doesn’t have to be like super perfectly, homogeneously mixed.

If something is homogeneous, that means every part of it is exactly the same. In this case, some parts will have a little bit more water, some will have a little bit more starter and some will have a little bit more flour because you don’t have to mix and mix and mix until it’s exactly homogeneous.

Super perfectly homogeneously mixed.

Are we done with the scales?

No we’re never done with the scale. Oh wow, I forgot. One thing, let me grab it. Luckily, my flour drawer with all the other stuff I need is right here.

Now, we take 100 grams of whole wheat. I like using King Arthur brand because it’s an employee-owned business and I like that. I like to support that.

So, 100 grams, I’m just sprinkling it in 1-0 oh, 100 perfectly. On the nose.

On the nose. Just like exact. Just like precise. This means the perfect right number. Exactly what we were wanting. This is an idiom. 100, on the nose.

Ugh, 102. Poor form Rachel. Let’s just pinch out a little bit. Okay now, it’s 900 regular flour. I like to buy my flour in bulk. Again, King Arthur, 50 pound bags. So then I need a canister to put it in because I can’t have a 50 pound bag in my kitchen.

These are some nice ceramic ones that I got at Crate & Barrel. Don’t you love them? Okay so 900 bigger scoop. Ooh, then, then is the mixing part, then we’ll have to I’ll have to show you how to do that. It’s sort of fun. It gets it gets pretty messy, you got to mix it by hand.

Now the thing about putting too much in at this stage is it’s no big deal because you’ve got such a big mountain that you can easily scoop off the top. I’m going to edit this out. Okay, 900. Perfection. Okay, other one. David, why don’t you just let everyone here know what you think about my homemade bread?

It’s the best. Full stop.

Full stop. Don’t need more descriptors than that.

Full stop. This means putting a period at the end of a sentence and we use this casually to mean nothing more needs to be said about this. It is so good, it is the best. Full stop. Nothing can compete with it.

Done. Alright, so I like to make my hand look like I’m about to do a sock puppet. I don’t know why. I just find that’s the perfect shape and you stick it in the middle and you spin it around. Oh, you know what I forgot? I forgot that I like to have a bench scraper. Handy when I’m doing this. So, I like to use these plastic bendy ones, I do have a metal one but that kind of comes in handy for other things.

So I can use the bench scraper to take the flour that’s on the edge and stick it in the middle and it can also just sort of help mixing it all together.

It takes a couple minutes and it doesn’t have to be exactly perfectly homogeneous but you want it pretty well mixed. And you can see this is a real messy job, so just be prepared for the mess.

In baking bread there are lots of stops along the way where you have to clean everything for your next step. Alright, now see now I’m doing like pull from the side and kind of tuck it up and then scrape it back. Pull, push, pull, push. The good thing about this bread is you don’t actually have to knead it. This is the closest to kneading that we’re going to get which is nice because kneading takes a lot of time and is honestly kind of physically challenging. If you’re not the strongest with your upper body strength.

Okay, it’s all mixed up. So now, this is where we really get into the main thing of bread baking which is, do you know what it is?

Gluten development.

It’s waiting.

Great.

But yeah, that’s what’s happening if you’re going to get technical on me. Okay, so we just covered up and we wait for 25 minutes. Watch this.

Okay, it’s been 25 minutes. Did I hit you in the face?

No, but almost.

Alright now, it’s another just very simple quick step. It’s just some salt and warm water. 20 grams of salt, that’s usually about three. So the reason why this scale is so good is because my old scale it used to be totally flat so I could hardly read the numbers but because this one is up, and what I see is on the side, I can use a big old bowl. And I can still read what I’m doing. And now, 50 grams of warm water and then you kind of mix it in and guess what? Yeah, your hand’s going to get gross again. I was making this with my brother-in-law once and I was like, now when you pour the 50 grams of water, go really slowly because it goes faster than you’d think. He totally overpoured, but you know what? He did he quick hit the tare button so that I wouldn’t notice and then I looked in and I was thinking to myself “That looks like too much water.” And I said “Jeff did you overpour?” And he was like “Yeah.”

We take our hand which is so clean, it’s the cleanest hand ever. And we just sort of like grab it like that and pull it. And that is how we kind of get the salt and the water mixed in and then I also kind of take my thumb underneath and stretch it around so it’s you know it’s folding inside itself, and that’s all I need to do, that’s good enough. I’m going to do it for this one and then, we start the real process of letting it rise, and I’ll show you how I do that in just one second.

So now when you want your bread to rise you have to put it in a warm spot and I found that the warmest spot that’s consistent is in my cabinet because of the under cabinet lighting. This is not LED it’s incandescent which means it does put off some heat so, every time I’m making bread I just come here, I stack my dishes on my counter, cover it up with my little cloth and I put it in. And we’re going to do something called turning the bread every 30 minutes, so I’m going to set a timer for 30.

Okay, it’s been 30 minutes, we both washed our hands. It’s time to turn the bread.

Okay, so the thing to do here is it works the best if you get your arm all wet. Shake it off and then, here’s how you turn the bread. So this is what it looks like. You stick your hand in. Are you watching David?

Yeah.

You stick your hand in and slide it underneath so it’s in the middle on the bottom of the bowl and you lift it up and you kind of pull it away and you fold it over and then you turn your bowl a little bit and you do it again. You put it up under you lift it up let it stretch let it fall, fold it over, one more time. Stick your hand under there, lift it up and this time it’s not sticking to the bottom so I’m just going to hold it for a while to let the weight, let that gravity work. Shoulder exercise. And let it fall and when it starts falling, I fold it. And that’s it. Voila! We put the um, cover back on put it in for another 30 minutes and then we do it again.

Okay, turn number two. It’s been 30 minutes. It’s risen a little bit, I do the same thing. I tuck it up under and I pull it. One, rotate. Two, rotate. Three.

When you rotate something you turn it or spin it.

I’m blocking you with my bread. It’s like you’re not here at all. Three. Done. 30 more minutes.

The third turn of the bread. Ooh, it’s feeling warm on the bottom. It’s getting a little, little bit bigger. Now I found that at this stage, it starts to get more stretchy! Gorgeous. Okay, one, rotate. Two, rotate. You’re wetting your hands between each one?

I did that time because it was not going as well.

Three. Okay, now we only do four turns so there’s only one left. Let’s put this back in the cabinet. Let’s put it back in the cabinet. It’s time for the final turn. David isn’t here so it will be just me. So after the fourth turn, we just let it rise for another 90 minutes to 2 hours and we don’t touch it. So we get to take a little break. Bread gets to take a little break from being messed with. And then the real magic starts. Then we start shaping the loaves. Okay, so I’m going to finish this turn, I’m going to put it back in the cabinet and I’ll see you in 90 minutes to 2 hours.

Now David, it has risen. It’s not double but it’s maybe 50% bigger and it’s just the right consistency. I can just tell. So, here’s what you do. Take a bench scraper and dump it out. If you can, get flour all over your sweatshirt. Reach a bit in.

Okay, now we split it and you just kind of eyeball it. You know, we’re not going to be super precise here.

If you eyeball something, that’s the opposite of precise. That’s the opposite of exact. It means you’re just guessing based on what you see without measuring. I’m not going to weigh the two halves to make sure they’re exactly equal, I’m just going to eyeball it.

And you just kind of eyeball it. You know, we’re not going to be super precise here. And you use your bench scraper to kind of cut it and separate it even though it’s so sticky and it doesn’t like being separated. And then when you’re done be like, is that about equal? No it’s not. I’m going to take more from this one and shove it over there. Is that equal? That’s good enough. So now, you force it underneath. Boom. Lift it. Flop. Turn it upside down. Now, I’ll do it again then you do it to your two halves. Ready? Also if it sticks some, don’t worry about it. No big deal, we’ll deal with it later. Now, if it does that, where it lands right next to the other one, just try to reseparate. Okay, you do your flippy. Flip, not flippy.

Oh yeah, you got to separate it first.

He’s doing a great job isn’t he?

Masterful. Okay, now we need to shape it. And we’re going to shape it twice so to shape it I like to take a bench scraper and I take the top part and I pull it away then I take the side part and I pull it away then I take the other side, scoop it under, stretch and pull. Flop it then if there’s any sticking, I add it because that’s some bread, I don’t want to miss that. Then I take the fourth side which is the side towards me and I pull it and then when I put it on top I flip it over. And there we go and then you sort of you turn it in a circle as you push in on the bottom part of it. And that starts to shape your boule. And actually, I’m going to move this one over.

Boule is French for ball and it’s a shape of bread that’s like a circle.

And that starts to shape your boule. And actually, I’m going to move this one over, slowly but surely towards the other one because I’m going to cover them with the same cloth because now guess what they need to do?

Rise.

They need to rest and rise. Well, they don’t really rise, it’s more about the resting and then we shape it again. Okay, you do it.

Oh jeez. Okay, just leave that one alone for now. Okay, that’s good, that’s good. Okay, now on this one. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, I’m going to flour the tops so that the cloth doesn’t stick too much.

Okay, David had to go pick up the kids from school so it’s just me. We’re going to do the shaping one more time and then we’re putting them in the bread basket to rise overnight because we’re still not done. Alright, to start I’m going to flip it and you remember the drill. You know the drill. Same old thing. Tuck underneath, stretch, flop it on top. Then, do one side, then do the other side. And finally, the side in front of you, I’m going to stretch it, I’m going to flip it and roll it on top of itself and then, I’m going to sort of pinch the lower part in while I turn it. And that’s how we shape it into the cutest little boule. So I’m going to pick it up and flop it. And because there’s flour in there, you need to hold your breath otherwise the flour will get all in your face.

Okay, ready. Perfect. And there it is, I’m going to put a little bit of flour on top. I’m going to fold it gently lightly over itself and then I’m going to put this in the refrigerator and I’m going to do that to our three other loaves. One other thing when you’re shaping it that some people say you pull it towards you and turn it. And the reason why is it sticks on the bottom a little bit so that causes more tension on the surface, and that’s really what we’re going for. We want to take the surface and pull it tight. That’s what tucking the bottom side does, the bottom edges does and that’s what pulling it towards you and rotating it does and all of that helps to shape it.

Okay, so it’s time now to bake the bread. I got it out 30 minutes ago. It’s still cold but not refrigerator cold, not all the way cold. The oven is preheated to 500, so here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to take out the two Dutch ovens. We bake our bowls in Dutch ovens. Now David, are you prepared to tell people the alternate definition of a Dutch oven?

I think you better go ahead and do that.

No I’m not but there is another, So I’m going to show you a Dutch oven. It’s something that we bake in or cook in but it has another definition that’s really gross. It’s slang and I’m not going to tell you what it is but if you’re curious you can look it up on urbandictionary.com, that’s a great place to look up different slang meanings in American English. Dutch oven. Okay, I forgot my gloves.

I like using the Ove glove as my oven mitt because it lets my hands move more easily than a traditional oven mitt. So I’m going to pull them out, I’m going to put flour on my hands, I’m going to turn this bread out into my hand and bam! I’m going to drop it in.

All of these gonnas. Again, now gonna is not appropriate for writing but it is absolutely appropriate for spoken English even in a business setting. Even if you’re giving a speech. People simply use gonna in spoken English all the time.

So I’m going to pull them out, I’m going to put flour on my hands, I’m going to turn this bread out into my hand and bam! I’m going to drop it in.

And then I want to get them back in the oven as quickly as possible because I don’t want the Dutch ovens or the oven to lose temperature. Okay, ready David?

Yep.

Oh, I want to show how much it’s risen. Not a ton, maybe like 15 percent or something, maybe 20.

Dutch oven number one. Dutch oven number two. Okay, lids off, gloves off. Floured hands. Turn one hand upside down, flip the loaf out. Isn’t that beautiful? Line it up and drop it in and don’t burn your hands. Let’s do this again. Bam! Okay, now I’m quickly getting the lids back on, throwing them back in, and I’m actually going to turn it down from 500 to 450 and I’m going to set a timer for 5 minutes. I’m going to use this tool. I forget what it’s called. David do you remember?

Nope.  

Okay, I’ll look that up.

Okay, it’s spelled like it looks like it should be pronounced lame but it’s actually pronounced lam just like the animal, lamb and this is what we use to score the bread or to cut into the top of it. To score the bread. Put a slash in the top so that the air can come out. Okay, ready we’re going fast because we don’t want to let out too much hot air.

Okay, did it. Alright, 20 minutes. This is the easiest, quickest step of all, removing the lids. Sorry, you didn’t really get to see the bread, I like to do it really quickly so I don’t let out the hot air.

After we take the lid off, bake for 20 more minutes.

It’s time for the big reveal. Gorgeous. Look at that. Perfection. Let’s turn it out. That is going to be some good eating later today. Won’t you join me for dinner?

Alright, I know Stony likes the heel. The heel or the end.

You want butter? I’m going to cut this part out. This takes a long time.

Yeah, it does.

Isn’t that gorgeous? It’s still warm. Yummy!

And flaky sea salt right?

Yeah.

Happy dinner to everyone.

Keep your learning going now with this video and don’t forget to subscribe with notifications on, I love being your English teacher.

Salud!

Salud to you! That’s it and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.

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