best blueberry muffins

We have a slight sleeping situation in my household.

Our two dogs are the most wonderful creatures on the face of the earth (no, I'm not biased or anything, they actually are). But one of them, Coco, is terrified of thunderstorms. No, wait. Not just thunderstorms. Rain generally. Atmospheric changes before rain. The slightest hints of droplets on our roof, and Coco is underneath the couch or hiding in our TV-stand (I'm serious, we have pictures) or trying to burrow her way through the rug into the apartment below us.

And that's while I'm watching TV. The moment we go to bed, however, it's a different story. Our normally well-behaved dogs start barking their heads off the second the first raindrops fall, which is usually around 4 am these days.

And like I'm sure everyone knows, it has rained just about every day this summer. Which means that Chad and I get lovely middle of the night wake-up calls from the dogs, which prepares us very well for ultimately having kids someday, but since we have only been married for six weeks, I'd prefer to wait on that. And I'd prefer to sleep through the night on more than an occasional basis.

What, you might ask, does this have to do with blueberry muffins? Well (wait for it...) even on those mornings where you can't bear to get out of bed, a batch of these muffins is pretty good motivation. For those of you who actually do have newborns, I can vouch for the fact that when little household creatures are preventing you from sleeping through the night, every single night, these will at least make the mornings bearable.

And frankly, wouldn't you love to wake up to this little face? And one of the muffins too, please.

Best Blueberry Muffin Recipe

INGREDIENTS

For the muffins:

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour plus 1 tbsp

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

1 generous cup blueberries

For the topping:

2 tablespoons all purpose flour

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons butter, chilled

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray. Mix the blueberries with 1 tbsp flour until coated and set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar for several minutes. Stir in the eggs one at a time, and the vanilla. In a separate bowl, stir together 1 1/2 cups of flour, the baking powder, and the salt.

Add half the flour mixture to the sugar mixture, and then add the milk, and then the other half of the flour mixture. Mix well to combine. Fold in the blueberries, and spoon batter into the muffin tin, filling each cup halfway through.

In a separate bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons flour, the brown sugar and the cinnamon. Smash in the butter with a fork until the mixture creates crumbs, and then sprinkle the crumbs over the muffins.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Allow to cool, and serve.

Makes about 12 muffins.