INGREDIENTS:

Makes 12 Muffins

6 tbs cream cheese

¼ cup whole cranberry sauce

2⅔ cups flour

2 tbs cocoa powder

2 tsp baking powder

1 egg

⅔ cup sugar

⅞ cup milk

⅓ cup vegetable oil

¼ cup double-strength cold espresso

Muffin pan and 12 paper-lined baking cups

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Baking time: 25 minutes

Calories/serving: About 220

1~ Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line muffin pan with paper baking cups. Combine cream cheese and cranberry sauce; set aside. In a bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder.

2~ Whisk egg and combine with sugar, milk, oil, and espresso. Add to flour mixture and stir.

3~ Pour half the batter inot the baking cups. Pace about 2tsp cranberry-cream cheese mixture on top of each, and pour remaining batter on top. Bake in the oven (middle rack) for 20-25 minutes until a wooden pick inserted in center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool in the pan10 minutes before removing.

Time to taste your Coffee Cappuccino Muffins, pour yourself a cup of  coffee sit back and enjoy, yum!

What is Caffeine? It is an alkaloid found naturally in such foods as coffee beans, tea, kola nuts, Yerba maté, guarana, and (in small amounts) cacao beans. Caffeine is created in plants as a form of pesticide, to kill of insects feeding on them. In its true form caffeine is a whitish-yellow powder substance, bitter in taste.

Caffeine’s main drug producing effects are: a stimulant that affect the central nervous system, effect the supply of oxygen to cells, the heart rate, and is a mild diuretic. Some studies show that small amounts of caffeine may increase our cognitive functioning and improve our mood.

One common source of caffeine is the coffee plant, the beans from which are used to produce coffee. Caffeine content varies substantially between Arabica and Robusta species  and to a lesser degree between varieties of each species. A single serving (6 to 8 fl oz) cup of  drip coffee contains around 100 to 125 mg of caffeine. However the world over coffee varies considerably in caffeine content per serving, and range from 75 mg to 250 mg.

Tea is another common source of caffeine in many cultures. In general tea contains half the amount of caffeine per serving than coffee, though certain types of tea, such as Lapsang sou chong smoked teas, and oolong contain less caffeine.

Just how much is a safe amount of caffeine, it is generally agreed that consuming up to 300 mg of caffeine per day is safe. That is the equivalence of drinking three cups of coffee or six cups of tea a day.

Coffee probably originated in Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and presumably takes its name from the Kafffa province there. Coffee cultivation moved form Africa to Yemen, which soon supplied coffee to the entire Arab world. At the beginning of the 17 century, the first coffee beans were brought to Italy from the Yemeni port city of Mocha. With siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1683, coffee began is triumphal march through all of Europe.

When the Turks retreated, they left behind hundreds of sack of coffee. A clever Viennese took advantage of the opportunity and immediately opened the city’s first coffee house. At first coffee was a rate and expensive and therefore reserved for the aristocracy. To meet the large demand, colonial powers established plantations in all suitable, subtropical areas. But coffee didn’t become a drink for the common people until the arrivals of the new industrial age, when the methods for processing coffee were simplified and the luxury drink became slightly more attainable.

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In today’s tough economic times we face the daily barrage of the struggling economy, which subconsciously contributes to a negative effect on our psyche. We need to be aware of our health, in mind, body and spirit. One of the ways we can take care of this is to take the time to indulge in one of life’s simple pleasure of sipping a cup of freshly brewed coffee or tea. So if you enjoy your morning or afternoon ritual, then by all means indulge. Just keep it traditional, pure, simple, and pleasurable.

Have you ever gone without your morning cup, how do you feel, when you finally press your lips to the cup and take that longed-for sip…doesn’t it feel wonderful !

Decaffeinated coffee is less about the beans; it is all to do with the process of extracting the caffeine out of the bean. The process and method of extracting the caffeine from the beans is a complex one. The decaffeinating process is done with green and unroasted coffee beans.

There are several varying methods to decaffeinating coffee. In short the initial step involves the process of steaming the beans. Thereafter the coffee beans are rinsed in solvent between 8 and 12 times or until a minimum of 97% of the caffeine has been extracted for the coffee beans, as required by international standards.

It a true tried and tested method and the beauty of the process of rinsing the beans, is it does not remove any of its essential oils, chemicals, aroma or flavour, key components to good coffee.

It is important to mention that all decaffeinated coffee retain some caffeine between .01 and 3%. Although it doesn’t appear to be a great amount to most of us, those that are highly sensitive to the chemical might like to know that they are getting small amounts of caffeine that may make them excitable and affect their sleep. You should simply know that when you drink any coffee you will be introducing some caffeine, into your system.

When choosing a decaffeinated coffee, choose one form the Arabica bean as it contains lesser amounts of caffeine than the Robusta coffee bean.

Becoming a morning person is usually quite a shock, followed by a bumpy road, for most young adults working their first job. After 4-and-a-half years of college and becoming spoiled by afternoon classes and sleeping in until noon, waking up at 6 am every day was an inexplicable transition. Needless to say, it took weeks of social adjustment to learn that I couldn’t stay up until midnight and still be perky and attentive the next day t work. Reality crept out of nowhere and then bam, there it was like a semi truck running me over.

Caffeine became a daily must in the mornings to fully awaken my brain and jumpstart my day. The few times I had drank coffee in the earlier years of my life, it was always doused with cream and sugar. Then quickly I learned that all of that rich and sugary mumbo jumbo was an easy way to get an upset stomach. My savior became gourmet flavored coffee – introduced to me by a friend – its bold and delicious flavors come in many varieties: mocha, cinnamon, hazelnut, French vanilla, and the list goes on. It’s a coffee that’s perfect just as it is.\

Go ahead: That cup of joe won’t hurt you, the latest research says. It might even help you.

Coffee drinkers, rejoice! The heavenly brew, once deemed harmful to health, is turning out to be, if not quite a health food, at least a low-risk drink, and in many ways a beneficial one. It could protect against diabetes, liver cancer, cirrhosis and Parkinson’s disease.

What happened? Lots of new research, and the recognition that older, negative studies often failed to tease apart the effects of coffee and those of smoking because so many coffee drinkers were also smokers.

“Coffee was seen as very unhealthy,” said Rob van Dam, a coffee researcher and epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health. “Now we have a more balanced view. We’re not telling people to drink it for health. But it is a good beverage choice.”

As you digest the news on coffee, keep in mind that coffee and caffeine are not the same thing. In fact, “they are vastly different,” said coffee researcher Terry Graham, chairman of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. One can be good for you; the other, less so.

“Coffee is a complex beverage with hundreds, if not thousands, of bioactive ingredients,” he said. “A cup of coffee is 2% caffeine, 98% other stuff.”

Coffee from Arabia is still a part of the Islamic faith and is use in ritualistic ceremonies.

The coffee growers of Arabia protected their monopoly on the prized plant. They were the exclusive providers of coffee throughout the world for several hundred years.

That is until a coffee plant finally made its way to the Caribbean. This began a new legacy of high-quality coffee in Latin America.

It is said that all the Arabica Coffee grown in the world started from this plant as cuttings were transplanted all over the world. Coffee from Arabia is truly the source of coffee throughout the world.

The word mocha comes from the name Mokha, the shipping port in Yemen where all Arabian coffee was exported. Mocha has become a term used for describing a coffee beverage in which chocolate is added. But originally it had nothing to do with chocolate.

Arabian Coffee is the quintessential coffee of the world. Arabia lends its name to the highest quality coffee plant in the world, Coffea Arabica. This coffee accounts for approximately 80% of all coffee produced in the world. It prefers higher elevations and drier climates than its cousin C. Robusta.

The tropics of South America provide ideal conditions for growing Arabian Coffee which grows best between 3,000 and 6,500 feet but has been grown as high as 9,000 feet. Generally, the higher the plant is grown the slower it matures. This gives it time to develop the internal elements and oils that give coffee its aromatic flavor.

Coffee was originally discovered in Ethiopia, just across the Red Sea from Arabia. It soon made its way to Yemen where it was embraced by the Islamic people. Soon it became a beverage endorsed by the Islamic clerics as drinking alcohol was prohibited in their religion. This particular blend soon came to be known as an Islamic beverage.

Coffee from Arabia was exported to Europe where the people embraced it. However, the Catholic Cardinals shunned it as the ‘Devil’s drink’ and tried to have it banned.

But then Pope Clement VIII decided that it would be imprudent to ban the beverage without having tasted it, so he summoned a sample. As legend has it, the Pope was immediately enamored by the distinct, pungent aroma and taste. He decided that to banish the delightful drink would be a greater sin. So he baptized it on the spot claiming that it would be a shame to let the impious ones have this delightful drink all to themselves.

According to legend, human cultivation of coffee began after goats in Ethiopia were seen mounting each other after eating the leaves and fruits of the coffee tree. In reality, human consumption of coffee fruits probably began long before humans took up pastoralism. In Ethiopia there are still some locales where people drink a tisane made from the leaves of the coffee tree.

The first written record of coffee made from roasted coffee beans comes from Arabian scholars who wrote that it was useful in prolonging their working hours. The Arab innovation of making a brew from roasted beans, spread first among the Egyptians and Turks and later on found its way around the world.