The inspiration: Downtown Bakery and Creamery’s Cinnamon Sugar Donut Muffins

 A friend of mine tried this recipe, and said it was amazing! For the record, I found the recipe here. I plan on making both muffins and cake balls. 

Downtown Bakery and Creamery’s Cinnamon Sugar Donut Muffins

Yield: 24 standard size muffins  (52-56 mini muffins)

For the muffins:
12 oz. (24 Tbs.) unsalted butter, warmed to room temperature
1-3/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 lb. 11 oz. (6 cups) all-purpose flour
1 Tbs. plus 2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1-3/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1-2/3 cups milk
1/4 cup buttermilk

For dipping:
8 oz. (16 Tbs.) unsalted butter; more as needed
2 cups sugar
2 Tbs. ground cinnamon

Put a rack in the middle of the oven and heat the oven to 350°F. In a stand mixer or a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until just mixed in. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg. Combine the milk and buttermilk. With a wooden spoon, mix a quarter of the dry ingredients into the butter mixture. Then mix in a third of the milk mixture. Continue mixing in the remaining dry and wet ingredients alternately, ending with the dry. Mix until well combined and smooth, but don’t overmix. The batter is very thick.  Grease and flour a standard-size muffin tin. Scoop enough batter into each tin so that the top of the batter is even with the rim of the cup, about 1/2 cup. (A #16 ice-cream scoop gives you the perfect amount.) Bake the muffins until firm to the touch, 30 to 35 minutes.

Melt the butter for the dipping mixture. Combine the sugar and cinnamon. When the muffins are just cool enough to handle, remove them from the tin, dip them into or brush them all over with the melted butter (I recommend the brush method- I did both and found that the dip method lead to them absorbing too much butter and got greasy).  Then roll them- top, bottom, and sides- in the cinnamon sugar.

Make ahead: You don’t have to bake all the muffins right away; the batter will keep, covered and chilled, for up to three days in the refrigerator.

Mini muffins:  I baked mine in a mini muffin tin. I made a half recipe and got 28 mini muffins.  They took about 18 minutes to bake, but I would start checking at about 14 minutes.

Source:Fine Cooking

Helpful Hints:

• Cinnamon sugar is delicious, but powdered sugar, plain sugar, or vanilla sugar would be delicious too.
• Do not overmix, or you will not get fluffy, tender muffins.
• I added a splash of vanilla to the batter, as I can’t imagine any baked good without it