Sweet Carrot Muffins

Drumroll please......... well, along with 2010 comes my 1st Blog Birthday!!! The exact date is January 14th, but I decided to celebrate it a little early with having my blog redesigned; no one could have done the job any better than Gisele Jaquenod. She's amazing to work with, and a fast designer. No lie, we worked together for 24 hours. We started this Saturday night, and it ended Sunday night. All through email. We bonded and were able to understand each other extremely easily, and honestly, she's amazing at what she does. All of you should check out her site and her work: Gisele Jaquenod. To celebrate my 1st, I decided to make these muffins from Williams-Sonoma: Bread. They remind me of carrot cake, but these have poppy seeds and lack the cream cheese frosting. The recipe also brought a side note on folding, which is like a refresher tip for a lot of us.

"FOLDING: Folding is a basic technique for combining ingredients without deflating a delicate mixture. To fold in the cranberries and carrots in this recipe, spoon them on top of the batter. Using a rubber spatula with the blade held vertically, cut straight down into the center of the two mixtures to the bottom of the bowl and pull the spatula toward you and then up the side of the bowl. Give the bowl a quarter turn and repeat the motion just until the two mixtures are combined. If the batter is overmixed, it will lose air and the muffins will not rise fully."

Sweet Carrot Muffins
*makes 14 muffins*

Ingredients:
melted butter for greasing
4 large eggs
3/4 cup canola oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp poppy seeds
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups shredded carrots
3/4 cup dried cranberries

Directions:
1) Preheat the oven to 350F. Have ready two 12-cup muffin pans. Grease 14 of the cups and fill any unused cups with water to prevent warping.
2) In a large bowl, combine the eggs, oil, and vanilla. Beat vigorously with a whisk until smooth and slightly thickened, about 1 minute. In another bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, cinnamon, poppy seeds, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Gradually stir the flour mixture into the egg mixture and beat just until smooth, about 20 strokes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Fold in the carrots and cranberries just until combined. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups, filling each cup three-fourths full.
3) Bake until golden, dry, and springy to the touch, 20-25 minutes. A cake tester inserted into the center of a muffin should come out clean. Let stand for 10 minutes. Using a small metal spatula, remove each muffin from its cup and place on a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.