Ingredients
Coffee cake
250g butter, softened
1 cup castor sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
4 eggs
2 cups self raising flour
2/3 cups milk, at room temperature
1/3 cup espresso coffee

Coffee butter cream
250g butter, softened
2 cups icing sugar, sifted
3 tablespoons liquid espresso coffee
1 tablespoon kahlua

Sticky cinnamon apples
1 cup water
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 star anise
1 granny smith apple, cored, peeled and sliced
2 tablespoons kahlua
3 tablespoons flaked almonds, toasted

Method
Preparation and cooking time: 70 minutes
Serves: 2

1. Preheat oven to 180?C. Grease and baking paper-line a 2×20cm spring form cake tins.

2. For cake, cream butter, sugar and vanilla paste in a small bowl of an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition.

3. Sift in flour, pour in milk and coffee and gently mix until combined and smooth. Pour into prepared tins and bake for 30 minutes or until cake springs back to the touch. Cool in tin for 2-3 minutes and turn onto a wire rack to cool completely.

4. For coffee butter cream, beat butter until pale, add icing sugar, espresso and kahlua and beat until light and fluffy.

5. For apples, place water, sugar, cinnamon, and star anise in a saucepan and place over a low heat until sugar dissolves. Add apple, increase heat to high and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until apples are tender, liquid has reduced and is syrupy and caramel coloured. Add kahlua and flaked almonds.

6. To serve, cut completely cooled cake into rounds and slice rounds in half lengthways. Layer rounds with butter cream and stack 3 layers high. Transfer to a serving plate and completely cover cake with
butter cream. Arrange a spoonful of apples next to cake and drizzle syrup over cake and apples.

Source: http://bit.ly/r7UW74

That morning cup (or cups) of coffee may do more than just kick-start your day. Women who habitually drink several cups of coffee per day over the course of years or decades may be less likely than their peers to develop cancer in the lining of their uterus, a new study suggests.

Researchers at Harvard University analyzed data on 67,470 women between the ages of 34 and 59 who were followed for about 26 years. Compared to women who drank little or no coffee, those who averaged four or more cups per day had a 25 percent lower risk of developing endometrial cancer, and those who drank two or three cups per day had a 7 percent lower risk.

More from Health.com:

Big Perks: Coffee’s Health Benefits

12 Surprising Sources Of Caffeine

The Truth About The Health Benefits Of Tea

Although the study, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health, doesn’t prove that drinking coffee was directly responsible for reducing cancer risk, the researchers say a cause-and-effect relationship is plausible. Coffee drinking has been shown in previous studies to lower levels of insulin and estrogen, and chronically high levels of both hormones have been linked to endometrial cancer, the study notes.

The researchers urge coffee drinkers to hold the cream and sugar, however. Whatever benefits coffee may have on insulin levels would almost certainly be negated by the added calories and fat, which could contribute to insulin resistance and weight gain, they say.

Edward Giovannucci, MD, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston, led the study. The findings, which were published today in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, add to a growing body of evidence that indicates coffee may offer more benefits than harm when it comes to health — and not just cancer health.

In recent years, studies have linked coffee consumption to a lower risk of liver cancer and lethal prostate cancer, as well as a lower risk of depression, type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease (mainly in men), and cirrhosis of the liver. Research in mice even suggests that coffee may help protect against the brain changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

It’s not entirely clear how drinking coffee might improve health, but caffeine seems to be only part of the picture, since studies on decaffeinated coffee have turned up apparent health benefits as well. (In the new study, decaffeinated coffee appeared to lower the risk of endometrial cancer, but the researchers had too little data on decaf-only drinkers to reach any reliable conclusions.)

Compounds with antioxidant properties — such as chlorogenic acid — likely play a role as well. “There are estimated to be over a couple thousand different components in coffee, many of which are antioxidants,” says Donald Hensrud, M.D., chair of preventive medicine at the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minn.

Coffee contains even more antioxidants than green tea, says Hensrud, who was not involved in the new research. Giovannucci and his colleagues looked at tea drinkers in their study as well, but they found no relationship between tea consumption and endometrial-cancer risk.

The study has several key shortcomings that mean the findings should be interpreted with caution. The researchers relied on biennial diet questionnaires to assess coffee and tea intake, for instance, and although they controlled for a wide range of health factors and behaviors, they can’t rule out the possibility that heavy coffee drinkers are socially or culturally different from their peers in ways that could affect cancer risk.

Leo B. Twiggs, M.D., a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, says a “whole host of reasons” other than coffee consumption could potentially explain the study findings.

Women concerned about cancer risk shouldn’t necessarily increase their coffee intake, in other words. “It’s OK to drink coffee as long as you don’t drink lots of it,” Twiggs says.

Although drinking a lot of caffeinated coffee doesn’t appear to have any serious health consequences (such as raising the risk of high blood pressure, or hypertension), Hensrud says, it can carry some potential side effects, including insomnia, worsened heartburn, heart palpitations, anxiety, and irritability.

The “take-home message” of the new study should not be to “go out and drink more than four cups a day,” says Steven R. Goldstein, M.D., a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at New York University Langone Medical Center, in New York City.

The most effective way for women to detect — if not prevent — endometrial cancer is to look out for irregular menstrual bleeding and consult a doctor if they notice anything unusual, Goldstein says

Source:http://huff.to/sjzZuD

Aromatic arborio rice, coffee, and orange juice make an irresistable risotto for a deliciously different dessert. A bit of rum adds a burst of flavor, but you may omit it, if you wish.
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 40 minutesIngredients:
•1 Tablespoon instant coffee powder
•1/2 orange, shredded zest and juice
•1/2 cup arborio rice
•2 cups milk regular or low fat
•2 drops vanilla extract
•1/2 cup sugar
•2 Tablespoons butter
•3/4 cup heavy cream or nonfat equivalent
•3 Tablespoons rum (optional)
Preparation:
Put the coffee and orange juice in a saucepan with 1/2 cup of water and bring to a boil. Remove from heat, add the rice and let soak for 5 minutes.

Return the pan to heat and add the milk and vanilla extract. Cook over low heat until rice is tender, but still slightly firm to the bite.

Remove from heat, add sugar, orange zest, butter, cream, and rum (if using); stir through gently and serve at once.

Yield: 2 cups

Source: http://www.espressoessential.com/

Before I sat down to write this column, I zipped into the Dunkin’ Donuts drive-through to get a cup of iced black coffee, my favorite fuel.

I’ve been drinking coffee since I was a toddler, when my folks would allow me to add milk and sugar to the dregs in their yellow plastic mugs and sip it down. Drinking coffee in college made me feel sophisticated; pots of strong brew kept me awake through the writing of my master’s thesis and hundreds of other documents.

But as much as I love — and apparently need — the stuff, I’ve had to cut back lately because too much of this good thing aggravates my acid reflux. That, along with indigestion in general, turns out to be one of the few negative side effects clearly associated with coffee.

Science has come a long way since a 1981 study in the New England Journal of Medicine found a link between coffee consumption and pancreatic cancer risk; that finding has never been replicated and is now discredited. And lately the news about coffee has been good.

Donald Hensrud, chair of preventive, occupational and aerospace medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, says, “People have preconceptions about different foods, and the general concept about coffee is that it’s bad for you. But for most people, the benefits outweigh the risks.”

In a blog that I co-write for The Washington Post, I’ve reported on studies showing that coffee consumption might help protect against heart arrhythmia, stroke and depression in women, and basal cell carcinoma.

Alberto Ascherio, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, agrees that the news about coffee these days is generally good. But he cautions against putting much stock in single studies.

“You can find a paper suggesting that coffee is good for just about anything,” Ascherio says, “but we should be looking for consistent evidence across a broad population.”

Ascherio says that kind of strong evidence exists for coffee’s protective effect against Type 2 diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. In the former, it appears that it may be something in coffee other than its caffeine that offers protection, as decaffeinated coffee has also been found to reduce risk. With regard to Parkinson’s and many other diseases and conditions, caffeine may be the key component.

Ascherio notes that studying coffee’s health effects is tricky because coffee comes in so many forms and strengths. “It’s not the volume” of coffee consumed, “it’s the strength that we have no information on” in most population-based studies. “The amount of caffeine in coffee is extremely variable,” he says.

Beyond that, it’s increasingly clear that compounds in coffee other than caffeine have positive effects on our bodies. “There are hundreds, even thousands of components in coffee” Hensrud says, many of them antioxidants. “Among people who drink coffee, coffee is the main source of antioxidants,” he says.

Some of the potential benefits of drinking coffee, Hensrud say, include improved cognition and alertness, slight decrease in depression risk and potential reduction in risk of liver disease and even suicide risk. Concerns over cardiovascular risks have been largely set aside, he says, though some unfiltered coffee may perhaps raise “bad” LDL cholesterol.

Also, though coffee doesn’t appear to increase blood pressure over the long haul, among people who don’t drink it often, it can cause blood pressure to spike temporarily. “Tolerance seems to develop,” Hensrud explains. People metabolize caffeine differently, which accounts for why some of us can drink coffee after dinner and fall asleep soon after while others of us would lie awake all night if we sipped after supper, Hensrud says. Those differences, based to some degree on genetics, “may explain why some of us are more susceptible to coffee’s side effects and health effects,” he says.

Those side effects include insomnia, indigestion, and heart palpitations. For some, mostly men, urinary tract problems can result from drinking too much java, Hensrud explains. “And caffeine can be mildly addictive, so people who drink it all week at work might suffer weekend headaches if they don’t drink as much coffee” on Saturdays and Sundays.

Of course, if you’re accustomed to adding cream and sugar to your cuppa, or if your idea of “coffee” is a venti (20-ounce) salted caramel mocha from Starbucks, your coffee habit could lead to weight gain. That Starbucks beverage, for instance, has 510 calories, 160 from fat, which probably, er, outweighs any health benefits.

Hard as it is for me to imagine, there are plenty of folks who just don’t like coffee. Should they try to cultivate a taste to take advantage of the health benefits? Probably not, Hensrud says.

“If you don’t like it, it’s not worth it.”

Impress your friends with two coffee facts:

Portion of Americans over age 18 who drank coffee yesterday: 58 percent

Number of cups of coffee people identified as “coffee drinkers” drink per day: 3.4

— National Coffee Drinking Trends Study, The National Coffee Association of U.S.A. Inc., 2011

Source:http://bit.ly/rXMcZO