I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.

Are you ready to make some American pancakes and immerse yourself in English?

Let's do it.

Today I invite you to my home to make some pancakes with me and my four-year-old son

Theo.

We're going to be mixing the ingredients, making the pancakes, and then we'll be sitting

down at the table as a family and attempting to eat them together.

It's a little bit chaotic.

I have a four-year-old and a one-and-a-half-year-old.

As you can imagine, meal times are a little bit chaotic, but that's daily life, and that's

what I want to show you is real life English.

All of the English that you hear while we're baking and while we're sitting at the table

is what real American speakers use.

So, I hope that you'll be able to add that to your toolbox of English knowledge.

And to help you never forget what you've learned, I've created a free PDF worksheet that you

can download with the link in the description.

This includes all of the vocabulary, the phrases, the pronunciation points.

Everything that you are about to learn in this lesson, you can download in the free

PDF.

Plus, you can answer Vanessa's challenge question at the bottom of the PDF.

Click on the link in the description to download that PDF today.

All right.

Are you ready to bake some pancake with me?

Well, first things first, we have to go to the chicken coop and collect the eggs.

Let's go.

Dan: Oh my goodness.

Theo: How many?

Dan: We got four.

Theo: Whoa. Dan: Nice.

Vanessa: Thank you, chickens.

Theo: There are our eggs.

Vanessa: Oh, nice.

Theo: Look what you got.

Look what you made.

Vanessa: Thank you, chickens.

Theo: Thank you, chickens.

Dan: Thank you, chickens.

Freddie: Thank you, chickens.

Vanessa: What'd you say?

Dan: Thank you, chickens.

Vanessa: Thank you, chickens?

Dan: Can you say, "Thank you, chickens?"

Freddie: Thank you, chickens.

Vanessa: Thank you, chickens.

That's right.

Theo: Do you think they'll know it's a bowl?

Vanessa: Well< you can tell them.

Do you think that would be helpful?

Theo: It's a bowl.

Vanessa: It is a bowl, yes.

So, today Theo and I are going to be making pancakes, and the first step is I've got to

turn on this skillet.

It's called an electric griddle.

Do you know what this is going to be?

Theo: What?

Vanessa: Super hot.

Theo: Yeah.

This is going to be super hot.

Vanessa: Yes.

So we've got to push it to the side, and I think I have all the ingredients for us.

So, let's look at our recipe.

Mix the milk and vinegar.

Do you know which one of these is milk and vinegar?

Theo: Milk and vinegar.

Vanessa: All right, milk and vinegar.

So, we're going to put it in the biggest bowl.

We need 3/4 of a cup.

Can you hold that out?

Theo: That's milk?

Vanessa: And we're actually going to double our recipe, so we need a cup and a half.

Yes, that's milk.

Hold it really tight.

It's going to be heavy.

We're going to fill it all the way up.

All right, and then we're going to do a little bit more.

A half.

We're going to eyeball it.

That means that we don't use the measuring cup perfectly.

Okay, and the next thing it says vinegar, so we're going to need this.

It's a tablespoon.

We're going to have to use four of those.

So can you help me count them?

Theo: One.

Vanessa: All right, hold it a little bit closer so it doesn't splash.

Theo: Two.

Three.

Four.

Vanessa: All right, and now it says we have to set that aside because this is going to

curdle.

What's curdle?

Theo: Curdle means that it's going to kind of become clumpy.

Usually you don't want milk to become clumpy, but in pancakes it's going to make it great.

It's going to ferment it a little bit.

Vanessa: I need to mix it.

Let's set that aside because we have another bowl we've got to fill.

Are you ready?

It says, "Mix the eggs and... oh, mix the dry ingredients."

Okay, so we've got to mix the dry ingredients, which is flour.

Theo: Nice.

Vanessa: You want to be the scooper?

Oh, there's milk in there.

Let me get a dry one for you.

Theo: I dumped it out of there.

Vanessa: That's okay.

Okay, let's use two full cups of flour.

Good job leveling that off.

Okay, all right.

Oh, level it off before we use it.

Okay, all right.

Pancakes are very forgiving so even if you have a little bit too much or not enough,

then that's okay.

You know what I realized we forgot?

Theo: What?

Vanessa: Your apron.

I'll tie it.

Theo: Because you have an apron?

Vanessa: I have my apron so I bet you can have an apron, too.

There we go.

All right, the next is the baking soda and baking powder.

This one we're going to use the tiny scoop and we're going to use two of those.

Theo: These?

This?

Vanessa: Yeah, it's kind of clumpy in there, so can you smash up the clumps a little bit

with that scooper?

Kind of just smash in there, yeah.

Do you kind of have a funny feeling in your mouth when you use this?

Theo: What?

Vanessa: I can kind of taste it in the air.

All right, level it off.

One more scoop.

Okay, that will make one full, okay.

Actually, I think...

No, that's good.

You're supposed to use baking powder and baking soda and I only have baking soda, but I'm

afraid to use too much of this because it will make the pancakes yucky, so let's just

use that.

All right, salt.

We need two scoops of that, too.

Before we use it, I'm going to wipe this off, or maybe you can wipe it off, because it has

some of that baking soda on it, which is really yucky.

Yeah, that's good.

Break it off first.

Theo: Is that enough?

Vanessa: That looks great.

Okay, one, two, okay.

And then we have one more dry ingredient and it's back here.

I feel it getting hot.

Do you feel that?

Theo: Yeah.

Vanessa: All right, now we need some sugar.

So let's use this bigger scoop.

Can you dry it off with it?

Theo: What was in here?

Vanessa: We used that for vinegar and we definitely don't want vinegar in our sugar.

Okay.

Theo: Is that enough?

Vanessa: That looks great.

Can you get two- Theo: It's still wet.

Vanessa: It's a little bit wet.

Yeah, that's okay.

Could you get two scoops?

That's two tablespoons.

You know what?

Freddie put some banana pieces on this griddle earlier before it was turned on.

I can kind of smell them burning a little bit on there.

Oh, I see it's steaming, too.

Theo: Yes.

Vanessa: Okay, that's great.

Is that the first one?

Theo: Yeah.

Vanessa: Okay, let's do two.

That looks great And now- Theo: Can I try some sugar?

Vanessa: Yeah, a little pinch.

Theo: This is so both of us could have some.

Vanessa: Oh, I don't really want any, but could you eat it over the bowl so we don't

get ants?

That's a dream come true for any kid right there.

A pinch of sugar.

We'll mix that up.

Can you just wipe it on this towel?

Theo: Oh.

Vanessa: We don't want to gross out our students too much?

Theo: What's gross?

Vanessa: Well, usually it's not a good idea to lick your fingers when you're cooking,

but you know what?

You're only four years old.

It's okay.

If I did it, it probably would be not a good idea.

There you go.

Can you help stir that the rest of the way?

And then we'll go and- Theo: Well, you mix it with this and I'll

mix it with this.

Vanessa: Okay, now, that one can kind of thwack the ingredients all over the place, like that.

So let's use it really gently.

Okay, it says the next thing is to mix...

Oh, Freddie did get a bunch of stuff on here.

Let's see if I can rinse it off.

Usually the griddle does not steam so much, but there's burnt banana on it.

Yum.

Okay, so what are we doing next?

We did the milk and vinegar, the dry ingredients.

Mix the egg and the butter into the milk.

So, let's set aside the dry ingredients and let's check on our milk.

It's looking thick.

So usually when you bake pancakes you use buttermilk, which is already thick, but this

is a good way to kind of make it at home.

Ready?

Theo: Good?

Vanessa: Good save.

All right, let's put those in here.

Theo: (singing) Vanessa: And we need one more.

Theo: (singing) Vanessa: Yeah, but all of our chickens lay

slightly different colored eggs, all shades of brown.

But one of them, the Black Copper Maran, has really dark eggs like this, which is super

cool.

Some of them are really light and some of them are kind of medium.

All right.

Theo: Can we do three eggs?

Vanessa: This is the kind of recipe where we can't add more eggs.

Okay, now comes an important job.

Oh, the butter.

We've got to add the butter to this, too.

Theo: Can I do it?

Vanessa: Yes.

I'm going to scrape the last bits out, and can you use that fork to break up the yolk

in there?

Theo: This fork?

Vanessa: Yeah.

I think this might be our most prepared cooking show, because when we made broccoli cornbread

muffins and when we made chocolate chip cookies, I had the ingredients all scattered around

our kitchen in every place.

But this time I put them all on the counter.

All right, I think the next step after you mix this is to add the dry mixture to the

wet mixture, but there's a special note in our recipe mix.

Theo: What is it?

Vanessa: It says don't over mix.

Do you know what over mix means?

Theo: What?

Vanessa: It means mix it too much.

Because if you mix it too much you're going to have rubbery pancakes, and we want fluffy

pancakes.

So I'm going to pour this into here.

Theo: Can I do it?

Vanessa: Just a little bit at a time.

There you go.

Okay, let's mix that in.

I'm sure some professional bakers will be upset at us for using a fork because you're