Rum Soaked Peach Muffins with Streusel Topping
Careful with these. They incite euphoria and preserve only happy memories. Peaches are a symbol of youth and immortality. Walnuts symbolize the gathering of energy, especially in beginning new projects. Use this recipe sparingly or it’ll prove the worse for you. You’ve been warned. People who don’t listen to old folk’s wisdom are too stupid to pour piss out of a boot before they put it on.
Ingredients
For the muffins
? cup all-purpose flour
1? teaspoon baking powder
? teaspoon salt
? cup white sugar
? cup brown sugar
1 cup finely chopped peaches canned in syrup divided ? and ?
? cup milk
1 egg
? cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp dark rum
For the streusel topping
? cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons white sugar
? teaspoon baking powder
? teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
Directions
For the muffins
1.?Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and prepare a large muffin tin with 12 muffin cups.
2.?Dump peaches into sauce pan and add brown sugar and rum, bring to a boil. Turn down to low until all liquid is reduced. Let cool.
3.?Add the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar to a large bowl and whisk together to combine.
4.?Add ? c of the peaches and stir well to coat.
5.?Add the milk, egg, oil and vanilla extract, and stir together with a rubber spatula just until the flour disappears.
6.?Portion the batter out into the muffin cups evenly (about ? full).
For the topping
1.?Combine the flour, sugar and cinnamon and baking powder in a small bowl and stir.
2.?Add the cold butter in chunks and break it up with your fingers in the flour mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs.
3.?Top the muffins with the remaining peaches and with a spoonful of the streusel topping.
4.?Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into one of the muffins comes out clean.
??3??
SADIE WAS THIRTEEN YEARS old and wiping dirt-covered palms on her stained jeans. She had to do something to keep her mind busy while Seth was inside with Gigi. She had no idea what was coming, only that it was important. A ceremony of sorts—the day she’d find out her Revelare curse. Seth, having been born four minutes sooner—something he never let her forget—had gone first. Out in the garden, she straightened and looked at the back door so often she felt like a groundhog peeping its head out of the earth. Seth would tell her what to expect as soon as he came out. She knew he would. Still, she used her forearm to wipe sweat from her forehead despite the spring rainclouds hovering overhead.
Just as she kneeled down again, her knees caked in mud, the screen door banged open.
“Your turn,” he called out, jumping the stairs in one go.
She scrutinized his face, looking for some hint.
“What was it? What happened? What’s your curse?”
“I swore on the lemon tree.” He shrugged, but there was a tightness to it.
“You what?” she demanded. “Why?” She tried to keep the hurt from her voice and failed.
“She made me. Go on—she’s waiting for you.”
“You’re the worst,” she spat out, shoving past him and up the stairs. Before she yanked the screen door open, she scrunched her eyes shut. Seth had never kept anything from her. But she wouldn’t let it dampen this day. She’d been waiting for it since the first moment Aunt Tava had told her about it in hushed tones as she painted Sadie’s fingernails in pink sparkles when she was seven years old.
Though her stomach was a raging sea of angry lightning bugs, she made sure her face was composed. This was what she’d been waiting for. She appeared to be calm, cool, and collected, even if inside she was anything but. It was an art she’d mastered at an early age. Too early. But if she’d learned not to care about the secrets and whispers and children calling her names like witch and freak, then maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much. Fold the worries in half. Tuck them away.
The house was uncommonly warm. The kitchen table, set with Gigi’s nicest linen and china set, made Sadie’s heart thrill. The teapot had ceramic clusters of blueberries that were so cheery and full they looked half alive. There was a gentle, fragrant haze in the air from the clary sage and frankincense incense that added an air of magic and mystery to the whole ceremony. Both scents, Sadie knew, were supposed to invite clarity and focus.
“He can’t keep it from me,” Sadie said after she’d taken in the scene before her.
“He can and he will. Your turn now, sugar,” she’d said. “Sit.” She pushed a saucer and empty cup toward Sadie. “Eat,” she added, holding out a plate of pomegranate tea cakes.
“What do I need to be brave for?” Sadie asked, her eyes narrowing and focusing on the fruit dotted throughout the cake.
“The future always needs bravery, toot. Eat.”
The seeds burst in her mouth, the sweet, buttery taste coating her tongue as Gigi poured the vanilla jasmine tea with a hint of black pepper and cinnamon.
“It’s hot,” she warned.
Sadie blew on the top, watching the tiny ripples and inhaling the sweet warmth of the vanilla.
“Now, what do you want for your future?” Gigi asked conversationally.
“To do magic. To grow things. To help people,” Sadie answered without thinking.
“And what does magic mean to you?” Gigi asked, and Sadie thought there was a hint of sadness to her voice.
“Everything. Or almost everything. Seth means as much.”
“I know he does. Drink,” she commanded.
Sadie felt the valor of the pomegranate sink into her. She let the clarity and focus seep into her from the incense. Her curse wouldn’t be that bad. Whatever it was, it would be worth it so long as she could keep her magic.
She drained the last drop, set her teacup down, and rotating it, pushed it toward Gigi.
“You know the legacy. Every Revelare has magic, but they also have a curse. I told you your time would come, and it’s arrived, sugar. Your choice, of course, is to forgo the curse by sacrificing your magic.”
“What did Seth say when you asked him that?” Sadie challenged.
“Your brother and I had an entirely different conversation and ceremony, which you’re not to know about. Focus on your own future,” Gigi told her in a stern voice.
“Whatever his future is, mine is the same. We’re twins. That’s how it has to be. And I know Seth: he’d never give anything up until he understood it fully, and he doesn’t; so I can’t either, and I wouldn’t even if he did!” she said.
“This will change everything,” Gigi warned.
Sadie didn’t answer, but nodded once and watched as Gigi finally looked down into her cup. She turned it this way, then tilted it that. She swirled the remaining tea leaves, her lips pursed thin as paper.
“There’s a heart broken into four pieces and a chain. I see a clover, but it’s so near the bottom that the luck may not arrive before you’re old. And a snake. Bad omens, always.”
“What does it all mean?” Sadie asked, her heart hammering.
“It’s a curse of four heartbreaks, sugar.” Gigi shook her head almost as if she were angry. “Each one will be worse than the last. They’ll be so deep they’ll rend your soul in two. And if you’re not careful, when all four heartbreaks come to pass, the curse will consume you, and your magic will flee, leaving chaos behind, bitter as milk thistle. This curse will follow you like storm clouds, leaning toward you like wheat in the wind. Love only as you are willing to lose your magic.”
From that day, the magic had wrapped itself around her heart and built a wall of thickest vines until not even a tendril of hope could get in.