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`Foster's Market Cookbook' celebrates good, simple food
"The Foster's Market Cookbook: Favorite Recipes for Morning, Noon and Night"
Sara Foster, owner of two successful Foster’s Markets in North Carolina, makes that easy by sharing her favorite recipes in "The Foster’s Market Cookbook: Favorite Recipes for Morning, Noon and Night."
Foster’s Markets are the kinds of places where people take their time enjoying specialty sandwiches, homemade soups and muffins. Foster once worked with "Queen Homemaker" Martha Stewart and appears frequently on her television show. In fact, Stewart shares her thoughts in the book’s foreword: "Sara has remained true to her beliefs and conviction that good, honest food can be deliciously simple. Her recipes, though often complex in flavor, are by and large easy to prepare."
The hardcover book features more than 200 home-style recipes for every meal of the day, with 80 color photographs that look as delicious as the recipes sound. Sprinkled throughout are sidebars with handy cooking tips.
Sweet Peach Muffins with Brown
Sugar-Walnut Streusel Topping
Try these muffins, perfect for spotlighting in-season peaches. You also can use frozen peaches.
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For the Brown Sugar-Walnut Streusel Topping
- 1 1/2 cups walnuts, coarsely chopped
- 1/3 cup flour
- 1/3 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
For the muffin batter:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 eggs
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 1 1/2 cups sour cream
- 1 tablespoon dark rum or pure vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups peaches, peeled, pitted and chopped
To make the topping: Combine the walnuts, flour, brown sugar and cinnamon in a bowl, and stir to mix. Add the butter and mix until well-blended. Set aside or refrigerate in an airtight container until ready to use.
Heat the oven to 375 degrees.
Line 12 large muffin cups with paper liners, and coat the top part of the pan lightly with vegetable cooking spray.
To make the batter: Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, soda, cinnamon, allspice and salt into a large bowl, and set aside.
In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, butter, sour cream and rum until well-blended. Fold in the peaches. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir just until moist and blended. Do not overmix.
Using a large ice cream scoop ( 1/3 cup scoop), scoop the batter into the prepared muffin pan. The batter will come to the top of the paper liner or pan. Sprinkle with Brown Sugar-Walnut Streusel Topping and lightly press the topping into the muffin batter.
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the tops of the muffins spring back when pressed lightly and a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and cool for 5 minutes. Turn the muffins out of the pan and serve immediately.
Makes 12 muffins.
Variations: Almost any fresh or frozen fruit (except for very soft fruits such as bananas, papaya or mango) can be substituted for the peaches. Try blackberries, raspberries, blueberries or strawberries. In autumn, try chopped fresh apples or chopped pears.
| Muffin basics |
Sara Foster offers the following tips for preparing muffins:
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