Blueberry muffins with streusel topping

Now, before you start on your muffins... 

The trick (and there really is a trick) to making incredible muffins has to do with the mixing part. Read all of these directions through first, before you start doing anything, so you'll know what you're supposed to do.

First, preheat the oven to 400. Preheating is important -- the muffins should go into a fully preheated oven.

In the SMALLER bowl, put all of your wet ingredients -- 

In the LARGER bowl, put all of your dry ingredients and mix them with your large spoon. Make sure your ingredients are fully incorporated -- that is, you want the baking powder to be completely distributed through the flour.

Now here's the part nobody seems to point out: add your wet ingredients to your dry ones -- and fold them carefully with a few swift strokes. This is incredibly important. DON'T OVERMIX! There will even be places where the flour is still dry. I fold about 8 or 10 times -- carefully -- but the mixture will look lumpy and "not quite" fully mixed together. This is the way they're supposed to look.

If you mix it till it is the consistency of cake batter, you've gone too far and you'll end up with simply average muffins. Yeah, they'll still be good... but this recipe is for making *incredible* muffins.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 cup blueberries
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup butter, cubed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.

Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.

To Make Crumb Topping: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

You can use fresh or frozen blueberries in this, just make sure to thaw if frozen. Itll turn your batter a shade of purple...but doesn't bother me because they still taste great!

I doubled this recipe and ended up with 18 BIG muffins...If you do decide to double only double the batter part, not the streusel, there is enough of that to go around. And these muffins are great even without the streusel if thats not your cup of tea! But no matter how you like em, these are the best!