SUNDAY MORNINGS at MY HOUSE - apple and cranberry muffins

     You may be shocked when I tell you this, but I can get lazy sometimes.  Yes, it's true, lazy to the point where there is nothing delicious to eat on a Saturday or Sunday morning.  On those two days I like to sleep a little past the 5:50 a.m. alarm that wakes me every morning of the school / work week.  On those mornings I get downstairs as quickly as possible to feed my French Bulldog (who will whack me relentlessly with her paw until there is food in her dish), get my daughter breakfast (which I take up to her bedroom), and make my husband and myself a cappuccino. 

     Saturday and Sunday mornings I should be in my kitchen whipping up breakfasts so filling you have no desire to eat another meal until late in the day.  But instead, those are the mornings I like to sit in a peaceful, so-quiet-you-can-hear-a-pin-drop house with my cappuccino and stack of newspapers, and do nothing else but read.  (ah... doesn't that sound wonderful?)
      But I still want to wake up to something delicious to go along with that cappuccino.  Everyone in this house likes finding these Apple-Cranberry Muffins on the kitchen table in the morning.  I rarely have fresh cranberries available, but there are always dried in my pantry.  *Pour boiling water over 1 cup of dried cranberries to re-hydrate; after 5 minutes, pour off remaining water and continue with the recipe.

               …  Apple and Cranberry Muffins  …
    adapted from Once Upon a Tart by Frank Mentesana and Jerome Audureau

• Unsalted butter or vegetable oil spray for greasing the muffin tins
• 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil or canola oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 medium-size tart apple, cored (not peeled), and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 1 cup re-hydrated dried cranberries

1.  Preheat oven to 400˚F and grease 12 muffin cups.
2.  Whisk the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt together in a bowl.
3.  In a separate, large bowl, whisk the eggs briefly.  Still whisking with one hand, pour in the sugar with the other hand.  Continue whisking for a few minutes, until the eggs begin to pale in color.  Use the whisk to stir in the oil and vanilla.
4.  Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet, stirring gently with a spoon until flour is practically incorporated.  Add the apple and cranberries, and stir gently until there is no signs of flour left.
5.  Spoon the batter into the muffin tin cups, dividing evenly between the 12 cups.
6.  Place the muffin tin on the center rack of the preheated oven and bake for approximately 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.
7.  Remove from oven and cool for a few minutes in the tin.  Remove muffins to a wire rack to cool completely.

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