The recipe for these indulgent muffins comes from the Downtown Bakery & Creamery in Healdsburg. It appeared in an issue of Fine Cooking in 2001 and I mentally filed it away, thinking I’d make them someday, but I never did. Then last week, one of the guys on my team told me he wanted me to try to re-create something he saw on The Best Thing I Ever Ate, a muffin that tastes like a doughnut. I asked him if it was from Downtown Bakery…. yes! Ah, I have the recipe, I told him. I was going to make them last night, but alas, I didn’t have the FIVE sticks of butter required (three for the batter, two for coating the baked muffins before rolling them in cinnamon sugar. These muffins are not for the faint of heart.

• Doughnut Muffins (Fine Cooking #42, January 2001, p. 54)