WAKE UP! COFFEE IS EVEN MORE BEAUTIFUL NOW

What better way to celebrate Beautiful Awakenings than with beautiful coffee? Even better -- coffee can actually give you a more beautiful life, improving your body and brain.

Check out the news and indulge in the extraordinary coffee and coffee mates recipes we are sharing today.

COFFEE MAKES YOUR BRAIN & BODY MORE BEAUTIFUL

Coffee makes my day more beautiful! That’s what my favorite mug says anyway. But it turns out to be more true than I ever knew.

According to a recent announcement by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, a top US nutrition panel, coffee has been found to bestow significant benefits to the body and mind.

Coffee has been found to:

1. Reduce risk of heart attack and stroke
2. Reduce risk of type 2 diabetes
3. Protect against Parkinson's diesease
4. Reduce risk of developing multiple sclerosis
5. Protect against liver, prostate, and other kinds of cancer
6. Help athletic performance by boosting endurance

And, it turns out, all of those negative health risks attributed to coffee have been proven to be false. Make sure you drink plenty, it takes 3 to 5 cups to get the most benefit.

Kiss your Keurig goodbye. And find the beauty of freshly roasted, freshly ground, freshly brewed single-origin coffee. 

Known as Third Wave coffee, these precious beans are harvested at specific times, like wine grapes, considering terroirs, with each grove growing on a specific soil in a specific microclimate.

Unlike the dark roasts, popularized by Starbucks, the new band of Third Wave Roaster coffee roasters, like Stumptown, Intelligentsia, Counter Culture, and Blue Bottle, prefer to roast their beans lightly, to allow subtle flavor profiles to come through.

There is both art and science in Third Wave brewing, with precise grinds, water temperatures, and water ratios. Once you drink it black, you may never go back!

OFFBEAT & INSPIRED

We found some especially beautiful recipes that totally romance the romance of coffee. Sarah and Tiffany, of Offbeat & Inspired, will make your wake up experience one you will want to linger over.

LEMON BASIL WHOLE WHEAT COFFEE CAKE

If you are going to wake up to cake, Offbeat & Inspired’s Lemon-Basil Whole Wheat Coffee Cake gives you a beautiful guilty pleasure, with a nice dose of nutrients. Dig through its buttery sugary crumble topping, into its tender layers and tart lemon curd filling. Fresh lemon and basil make a perfect puckery pair.

Check out the recipe here.

COFFEE MAPLE CANDIED BACON

You know what a beautiful flavor combo coffee, maple syrup and bacon make when you have them together at breakfast. Sarah and Tiffany leverage this relationship with their incredible Coffee Maple Candied Bacon recipe.

Coffee-Maple Candied Bacon

Ingredients

• 12 oz. sliced, uncooked bacon (preferably thick-cut)
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp finely ground coffee
• 1 tbsp maple syrup
• Black pepper (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Lay the bacon slices out on the baking sheet. In a small bowl, mix together the sugar, coffee and maple syrup.

3. Spread the coffee and sugar mixture on the slices of bacon, flipping to coat both sides.

4. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until the sugars caramelize and the bacon gets crisp. Sprinkle on a bit of black pepper to taste. Allow the bacon to cool for a few minutes and then enjoy!​

COFFEE CARDAMOM ZEPPOLES

Zeppoles are Italian treats that are perfect accompaniments to a great cup of coffee. But these, from Offbeat & Inspired, are amped up with coffee and cardamom right in the zeppole batter. Intense.

Check out the recipe here.

SPICED BOURBON COFFEE

Offbeat and Inspired’s Spiced Bourbon Coffee warms you up on multiple levels. Cardamom, cloves, and orange add purr-factor. Sarah and TIffany like to use Maker’s Mark with FreshGround’s Uganda coffee brewed in a Chemex.

Spiced Bourbon Coffee

Yields 1 serving

Slightly adapted from ImbibeMagazine.com

Ingredients:

• 1 oz. bourbon
• 1 oz. citrus syrup (recipe below)
• 6 oz. freshly brewed coffee

Directions:

1. Stir together bourbon and syrup in a mug.

2. Add hot coffee, give it a quick stir and garnish with a piece of fresh orange.

3. Serve and enjoy!

Citrus Syrup

Yields enough for about 3-4 drinks

Ingredients: 

• Juice from 2 large oranges (about 3/4 cup total)
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 5 whole cloves
• Seeds from 3 cardamom pods
• 2-3 large strips of orange zest

Directions:

1. Add ingredients to a small saucepan and heat over medium heat until sugar dissolves.

2. Cook for about 10-15 minutes, stirring frequently and being careful that the mixture doesn’t boil. Mixture should thicken to a syrupy consistency.

3. Allow syrup to cool a bit and strain out spices and orange peel. Refrigerate until ready to use.

COFFEE CAKE DONUTS

A coffee cake, baked by Bowker’s, a little bakery in Long Beach Island, New Jersey, nagged at Sarah and Tiffany until they were inspired to create their own. They took the best of the cake -- rich, buttery, crumbly and tender, and brought those qualities to the Coffee Cake Donuts.

Check out the recipe here.

CORNMEAL CAKES WITH CHERRY COMPOTE

Cornmeal, buttermilk, honey, and love go into these delicate pancakes, but the love really busts out when they’re topped with thyme-scented whole cherry compote. This is the perfect way to awaken on a lazy Sunday morning, with a giant steaming mug of Third Wave Coffee to punctuate each sumptuous bite.

Sarah and Tiffany adapted this gluten-free recipe from The Sprouted Kitchen’s book The Sprouted Kitchen: A Tastier Take on Whole Foods.

Check out the recipe here.

Read more about Beautiful Awakenings, as they relate to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including Wake Up to Something Beautiful Now!, Deserts Are Awakening Sweetly Now.

Enter your own images and ideas about Beautiful Awakenings in this week’s creative Photo Competition. Open for entries now until 11:59 p.m. PT on 03.29.15. If you are reading this after that date, check out the current BN Creative Competition, and enter!

Want more stories like this? Sign up for our weekly newsletter, Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr. Join our BeautifulNow Community!

Do you have amazing photos of Beautiful Awakenings? Enter them in this week’s BN Photo Competition. We run new creative competitions every week!

IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Photo: by Cathy. Courtesy of The Extra Suitcase. Coffee Beans on Trees.
2. Photo: by Courtesy of Orange County Luxury Resorts. Coffee Blossoms.
3. Image: Courtesy of Pixgood. “We visited a Coffee Plantation.”
4. Image: Courtesy of Calusa Coffee Roasters. Sumatra Coffee beans.
5. Photo: by T Sea. Coffee Blossom Time of Year.
6. Image: Courtesy of Melbourne Coffee Merchants. Coffee Fazendas in Brazil.
7. Photo: by Ergos Coffee. Coffee Ready to Harvest.
8. Image: Courtesy of  Offbeat & Inspired. Lemon Basil Whole Wheat Coffee Cake.
9. Image: Courtesy of  Offbeat & Inspired. Lemon Basil Whole Wheat Coffee Cake.
10. Image: Courtesy of Offbeat & Inspired. Coffee-Maple Candied Bacon.
11. Image: Courtesy of  Offbeat & Inspired. Coffee + Cardamom Zeppole.
12. Image: Courtesy of  Offbeat & Inspired. Spiced Bourbon Coffee.
13. Image: Courtesy of  Offbeat & Inspired. Coffee Cake Donuts.
14. Image: Courtesy of  Offbeat & Inspired. Cornmeal Cakes with Cherry Compote.
15. Image: Courtesy of Kona Coffee Purveyors. Coffee Blossoms.
16. Photo: by Deepak Bhatia. Coffee Plant Blooms.
17. Photo: by Tammy Strobel. Writing & cocoa.
18. Photo: by Hugh Millear. A Greek Holiday.