Mocha Chocolate Coffee Cake

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Mocha Chocolate Coffee Cake

This is a pretty simple cake that all coffee lovers will welcome. Rich, creamy and juicy cake that you can serve to everyone, even to those who prefer tea over coffee. This mocha chocolate cake will be a nice and different dessert treat.

Mocha coffee is actually coffee with milk and chocolate. Mocha is served with the same amount of espresso coffee and hot milk or dark chocolate. Some like whipped cream on top, sprinkled with cinnamon or cocoa powder. Mocha containing a mixture of coffee and chocolate was purely a European idea. Coffee received its name from the port of Mocha in Yemen. In this harbor coffee beans were traded and they were named mocha bean. Now it has become one of the most popular coffees in the world. This is just a small introduction to the wonderful recipe that follows.

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Ingredients:

Cake Batter:

·         5 tablespoons all-purpose flour

·         4 egg yolks

·         4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

·         2 teaspoons baking powder

·         6 tablespoons sugar

·         4 tablespoons vegetable oil

·         1 tablespoon instant coffee powder

·         4 tablespoons buttermilk

Mocha Frosting:

·         1 ½ cups /350g/ butter, softened

·         4 tablespoons instant coffee powder

·         3 cups /320g/ powdered sugar

·         3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

·         2 teaspoons vanilla extract

·        Dark chocolate, grated for decoration

Directions:

1.    Preheat the oven at 180 degrees C /356 F/. Grease and flour 2 cake pans 10 inch long.

2.    In a large bowl combine flour, egg yolks, cocoa powder, baking powder, sugar, vegetable oil, and buttermilk. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed. Dissolve instant coffee in hot water and add it to a mixing bowl. Beat for 2 more minutes until blended.

3.    Pour mixture into prepared cake pans and bake for 30 min. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

4.    Meanwhile prepare Mocha frosting. In a large mixing bowl combine softened butter and powdered sugar and beat with electric mixer until creamy. Add cocoa powder, instant coffee and vanilla extract.

5.    Beat with the mixer for 3 min until mixture is smooth and fluffy. Put the frosting in the fridge for 40 min to make it more firm.

6.    Spread frosting evenly over the cake layer and decorate with grated chocolate on top.

Calories: 290

Preparation time: 1 hour |  Cook time: 30 min  |  Serves: 20

Did You Know? The most expensive coffee in the world is called Kopi Luwak and comes from Indonesia.

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Pizza Phyllo Pie

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Pizza Phyllo Pie

This is very quick and easy pie which can serve as a main dish when you have unexpected house guests. Everyone loves pizza, and pizza filling can be used for various types of dough, and each pizza will turn out great. This recipe is with the easiest in the world-dough, available everywhere - phyllo dough. If you haven’t prepared ​​anything with phyllo sheets, then you should start right now. With this dough you can make a huge number of sweet, sour, salty and savory pies and each one will be a succsess. You can not go wrong with this dough. Phyllo dough is usually baked in 25 min and the pie is ready for serving. Filling can be whichever you like, use your favorite pie-filling to make this crispy pastry and have fun baking.

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Ingredients:

·         8 sheets phyllo dough

·         6 tablespoons butter, melted

·         Ham, shredded 200g /7 oz/

·         Mushrooms 150g /5 oz/

·         Mozzarella cheese, shredded 250g /1 cup/

·         2 cloves garlic, minced

·         1 small onion, thinly sliced

·         1 teaspoon dried oregano

·         Pepper

·         Salt

Directions:

1.    Preheat the oven at 180 degrees C / 360 F/. Brush 15inch x 10inch x 1inch baking pan with butter.

2.    Lay a phyllo sheet in pan, folding edges in to fit. Brush phyllo with butter and sprinkle with half mozzarella cheese, half ham, half mushrooms, minced garlic, and onion.

3.    Top with remaining phyllo sheets and brush with butter. Sprinkle with remaining half of mozzarella, ham, mushrooms, garlic, onion and season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle oregano.

4.    Brush the last top layer of phyllo sheets with butter.

5.    Bake in the oven until crust is crisp and golden brown color. Bake for 25 min.

Calories: 195

Preparation time: 15 min   |  Cook time: 25 min   |  Serves: 16

Did You Know? That Pizza Hut serves about 1.7 million pizzas a day in the world?  

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Homemade Vanilla Croissant

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Homemade Vanilla Croissant

Is there anything more beautiful than eating warm vanilla croissants in the morning? Great way to sweeten and start the day. It takes a while to make homemade croissants, so take a few hours in the afternoon or evening, and don’t rush into making this on quick. There will be a lot of kneading, rising, shaping and than waiting for the dough to rise. But with results you’ll put a smile on everyone’s faces, and praises won’t fail. Also, yes, sometimes we just gotta give into carbs. And by carbs I mean homemade croissants, strait out the oven. They’re sow much better than brownies. Dough in this recipe has excellent structure.

You know how croissants are nice and soft when they’re warm, and than they become little firm when cool down. Well these croissants stay quite soft and nice and the day after. That is if anything remains the day after. I strongly recommend this recipe.  

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Ingredients:

·         Butter 250g /1 cup/

·         Plain flour 800g /6.4 cups/

·         Milk 2 dl /1 cup/

·         2 ½ teaspoon Dry active yeast

·         2 tablespoons sugar

·         2 egg yolks

·         2 teaspoons salt

·         Oil 2 dl /1 cup/

·         Yogurt 100ml /½ cup/

·         Sugar powder for dusting 20g /¼ cup/

For Vanilla Pudding:

·         Vanilla instant pudding mix powder 100g /1 cup/

·         Milk 500ml /2 cups/

·         3 tablespoons sugar

·         1 egg

·         1 tablespoon milk

Directions:

1.    Combine in a deep bowl butter, 2 tbsp of flour, 1 cup of milk, and 2 tbsp of white sugar.

2.    Take a cup and dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Add 2 egg yolk, 2 tsp of salt, oil, yogurt, dissolved yeast and blend with remaining flour. Mix well, and knead the dough until it gets smooth. The dough should clear the sides of the bowl and doesn’t stick. Cover the dough, and wrap with kitchen towel. Leave in a warm place for 1 hour.

3.    Once the dough is doubled, divide it into 7 parts. Pat and stretch the dough to form a circle, than cut it into 4 triangles. Smear butter over every triangle. 

4.    Cook the vanilla pudding. Pour 2 cups of milk, vanilla powder and 3 tbsp of sugar and cook all until milk boils. Stir constantly. When you get a compact mass the pudding is done.

5.    Smear vanilla pudding over each triangle and roll out the dough to form croissant. Repeat with all remaining 6 parts of dough and fill it with vanilla pudding.  

6.    In a small bowl beat together 1 egg and 1 tbsp of milk. Glaze croissants with egg wash. Preheat the oven at 200 degrees C /390 F/. 

7.    In oiled baking dish place croissants and bake in the oven at 200 degrees for 15-20 min. When croissants get golden brown crust, take them out.

8.    Sprinkle with sugar powder.    

Calories: 320

Preparation time: 2 hours   |   Cook time: 20 min   |   Serves: 28

Did You Know? That if you listen the music while eating, digestion will be more successful by 25%  

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Juicy Gourmet Burgers

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Juicy Gourmet Burgers

This beef burger tastes as good as it looks! Many cooks like to add a bunch of extras in the burger recipe like chili pepper, Worchester sauce, basil, chopped dill, etc. Still I mostly like to make this very simple recipe for a gourmet burger that usually suit everyones taste. Gourmet burger is extremely popular in the countries of central and eastern Balkans, particularly in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia. Not only that, but every meat tossed on the grill. This burger recipe was tested, and is good and above all simple. Burger is juicy, tasty and compliments are never lacking.

Ingredients:

·         Lean ground beef 500g /1 pound/

·         Onions, diced thinly 50g /1/3 cup/

·         Edam cheese, shredded 50g /1/3 cup/

·         Ham, shredded 50g /1/3 cup/

·         1 clove garlic, minced

·         Black pepper

·         Salt

Directions:

1.    Preheat an outdoor grill for medium heat, and lightly oil the grate.

2.    In a mixing bowl combine meat, onions, garlic, cheese and ham until evenly combined. Season with pepper and salt and mix again.

3.    Form the meat mixture with hands into 2 patties.

4.    Toss on preheated grill and cook for 5 min per side, until no longer pink in the center. Serve with French fries.

Calories: 460

Preparation time: 10 min   |   Cook time: 10 min   |  Serves: 2

Did You Know? In the past 40 years, the food industry had a more rapid development than the development of the world’s population?

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Chocolate Passion Cake

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Chocolate Passion Cake

Who can resist a lovely passion cake, rich with creamy chocolate flavour? This chocolate cake is not too complicated to prepare and it’s terribly delicious. All chocolate fans will love this recipe. Even those who prefer fruit cakes will love it. The cake is huge, there are about 25 slices, and it doesn’t take that long to make it. The most important is that I haven’t yet met someone who wasn’t thrilled with this passion cake.

Ingredients for Cake Batter:

·         4 eggs

·         Sugar 4 tablespoons

·         1 Baking powder /2 teaspoons/

·         All-purpose flour 4 tablespoons

·         Cocoa powder 1 tablespoon

Cake Filling:

·         5 egg yolks

·         Sugar powder 200g /7 oz/

·         Dark chocolate 200g /7 oz/

·         Butter, softened 250g /9 oz/

·         Heavy whipping cream 250 ml /1 cup/

·         Grated chocolate 50g /1.7 oz/ for decoration

Directions:

1.    Combine eggs, sugar, baking powder, flour and cocoa and beat with electric mixer until smooth mass.

2.    Bake in the preheated oven at 170 degree C /338 F/ for 20 min until the batter gets firm to the touch. Leave to cool.

3.    Take a thin knife to cut through the batter, to get two thin cake crusts.

4.    For the filling first melt the chocolate in small saucepan. Beat with electric mixer 5 egg yolks and half of sugar powder until smooth foam. Stir in melted chocolate.

5.    In another large bowl beat softened butter and other half of sugar powder until smooth mass. Combine with first chocolate filling and stir in.

6.    Beat heavy whipped cream until firm and smooth and stir in with the rest of the chocolate filling.

7.    Spread the filling on the bottom crust, put the second crust over and spread filling over the cake. Decorate with grated chocolate on top.

Calories: 430

Preparation time: 40 min   |   Cook time: 25 min   |   Serves: 25

And for advices on eating healthy, complete body care, skin and hair care and herbal remedies read on HealthAndCare Journal. 

Did You Know? That Napoleon reportedly carried chocolate on all of his military invasions?

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Baked Pasta With Mushrooms

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Baked Pasta With Mushrooms

If you need to save up a little, than this inexpensive dish is a good choice for lunch or dinner. Baked pasta is a meal that everyone will know how to prepare. It’s easy, just parboil pasta, perhaps seashell or penne, and add cooked mushrooms, eggs and cheese. You’ll need 30 min only. Mix everything up and it’s ready for baking in the oven. Although when you make this dish often, after a time you can get bored with it. Change the recipe than. Instead of mushrooms add minced meat, or some different vegetables. I like to make this pasta with zucchinis, or just with cheese. In any case it’s a pretty cheap meal that tastes good.   

Ingredients:

·         Seashell pasta 500g /1 pound/

·         Mushrooms 1 kg /2 pounds/

·         4 eggs

·         Milk 500ml /2 cups/

·         Cheese 250g /7 oz/

·         Oil 5 tablespoons

·         Salt

Directions:

1.    Put pasta in boiling water and add 1 tablespoon salt. If you don’t want your pasta to stick, add 3 tablespoon of oil in water. While pasta is cooking prepare the mixture.  

2.    In a bowl whisk 4 eggs, milk and cheese. Add half teaspoon of salt.

3.    Add little oil in the pan and fry the mushrooms.   

4.    When mushrooms get golden color remove the pan from the heat. Stir in fried mushrooms with pre-made mixture. ​

5.    When pasta is cooked, strain it unwashed, and pour into a deep baking tray. Pour mixture over pasta.

6.    Bake it in oven at 200C /390 F/ for 25 min.

Calories: 310

Preparation time: 15 min  |  Cook time: 30 min  |  Serves: 6 

Did You Know? In Austria’s glacier was discovered the “iceman”, a middle-aged man who lived 5300 years ago. In his bag were found two mushrooms. 

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