Alternative title : Biophysicist-Inventor Possibly One of the Greatest Americans Ever.
Thanks to a biophysicist, caffeinated muffins could be coming soon to a coffee shop near you — and they’ll also be loaded with antioxidants. Professor Daniel Perlman of Boston-area Brandeis University has invented a coffee flour milled from par-baked green coffee beans that can be used in baked goods; a patent for the process was approved in December.
As the Boston Globe notes, a number of studies have been done in recent years focusing on the health benefits of coffee, but while many researchers agree that a few cups a day is good for you, they have yet to pinpoint what exactly is responsible for coffee’s beneficial effects — though they suspect it may have something to do with “chlorogenic acid (CGA), an antioxidant that appears to modulate how rapidly the body breaks down glucose.”
Perlman’s newly patented process involves par-baking green coffee beans at a relatively lower temperature for a short period of time, which retains the CGA that’s typically lost in the regular coffee roasting process. The resulting light-colored beans are no good for brewing and drinking, so instead, he turned them into a finely milled flour that has up to four times as much CGA as regular roasted coffee beans.
Via Newly Patented Coffee Flour Could Fuel Caffeinated Baked Goods @ Eater.