#Recap April 30

Coach4aday is a daily blog that began in 2014. The posts are mostly shared ideas to help people grow and learn. You can follow the blog with one of the like buttons found on top left of Coach4aday website.

In 2020 some Coach4aday posts will feature lessons learned by completing, planning, and experiencing 30 day challenges. The challenges include physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional.

Recap

Today’s post is a RECAP of what I experienced and learned with the 30 Day Baking Challenge for the month of April.

My goal this month was to learn how to bake using eight different recipes. As I said back on April 1st I had never baked anything from scratch before. I loved learning about how baking worked and this was a fun 30 days.

I have to give a big shout out to Jeff Neelon and Tina Bullard who joined me in this 30 Day Challenge as partners. They provide accountability and lots of levity.

Sometimes Jeff wanted to turn the baking challenge into a baking competition. We both realized pretty quick when Tina did some baking via a highly sophisticated French Cookbook and revealed she had a monogrammed chef hat and jacket there was no competition.

I like to think that Jeff accepted that just doing the challenge especially to impress his beautiful grandchildren was reward enough.

My eight recipes were as follows:

1. Italian Bread
2. Strawberry Muffins-Thanks Sara Griffin-Greene
3.  Chocolate Chip Cookies
4. Apple Pie
5.  Yeast Rolls
6.  Congo Square Brownies
7.  Pound Cake
8.  Pretzels

Here is my take on what I learned.

My tastiest baking project was the pound cake. Shout to Cheryl Page for the recipe. It was a landslide winner in my house. Its appearance, aroma, and taste were all fantastic.

The most labor intensive were the pretzels. Hand rolling each pretzel was more than I bargained for especially when the recipe calls for making 6-7 dozen.

The most bland and disappointing were the yeast rolls. They were on the dry side.

I definitely will make the Italian Bread, Apple Pie, and Chocolate Chip Cookies again. I was proud of my amateur status delivering something that was not bad. I wasn’t the best chef in the challenge but I was excited to learn.

Here are my photos after I finished baking each item.

Italian Bread

Strawberry Muffins

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Apple Pie

Yeast Rolls

Congo Square Brownies

Pound Cake

Pretzels

I loved doing this 30 Day Challenge and to answer a question from Robin Langley I do plan to do more baking moving forward.  To date here is what I have accomplished in my quest to do monthly 30 Day Challenges .

January I started a Gratitude Journal where I record 3 things each day I am grateful for. I am happy to report I still am keeping up with my journal every morning. I also did a Dry January challenge with Maureen Metzger and Ken Ransom.

February it was pushups. I now do 30 each morning. When I started I could not get 3 knee pushups. Thanks to all that joined me in this challenge.

March it was a goal to read 8 new books. I accomplished that but for April my pace has dropped off to two books. Jeff Neelon was a partner in this challenge also.

Tomorrow is May 1st so its on to a new 30 Day Challenge.

Will reveal what that learning opportunity is with tomorrow’s post.

If you want to join me after reading let me know.

 

 

Tags: 30 Day Challenge, Apple Pie, Baking Challenge, Brownies, Chef Hat, Chef Jacket, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Grandchildren, Italian Bread, Jeff Neelon, Pound Cake, Pretzels, Recap, Recipes, Strawberry Muffins, Tina Bullard, Yeast Rolls