Morning Glory Muffins

The Medium Version

The Mammoth Version

This morning wasn't totally glorious, because I woke up at 2 a.m. and fell back asleep at 5:30. Ah, jetlag. At least I had the new "Best Recipes of 2010" magazine from Cook's Illustrated to entertain my midnight hours. So our trip to the U.S. both kept me up and lulled me back to sleep.

While we were staying with friends in San Francisco, I had my first shot in a couple of years at a stack of thick cookbooks. Here in Bulgaria, I rely mainly on food blogs, but there, I read thick tomes of creative inspiration over meals. I didn't have too much time for copying recipes, what with all the job interviewing, but I did manage to jot down the steps for these Morning Glory muffins. I'm convinced they will aid Brett and I as we train for next July's Boilermaker 15K in New York.

Morning Glory Muffins

1/2 cup raisins

2 cups flour

1 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups grated carrots

1 grated apple

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

3 eggs

2/3 cup vegetable oil

2 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat the oven to 375 F. Line muffin cups for regular sized muffins or grease mammoth muffin tins.

2. Fill a small bowl half full with hot water. Pour in raisins to plump. Leave them there.

3. Whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Add carrots, apple and walnuts.

4. In a separate bowl, beat together the vegetable oil, eggs and vanilla with a fork. Stir into the dry mixture until just combined.

5. Drain the raisins. Fold in.

6. Bake 20-25 minutes, rotating halfway. I found the regular sized muffins took about 20 minutes, the larger versions about 23.

7. Cool 5 minutes in the pan before removing to cool on racks - or cool all the way in the pan, they'll still be good!