One of my favorite times as a little girl were Sunday mornings in the spring. Trees surrounded the windows, and birds were always chirping a chorus when I walked into our kitchen. One year, we had a returning visitor, a little yellow parakeet who had presumably escaped his home not too long ago. He watched from a branch as we ate breakfast together and laughed; he seemed to enjoy his new liberation from the confines of a little wire cage, and we enjoyed seeing his bright feathers peeking in through the windows. I liked to think that after his time at our window, he migrated south, maybe to Miami, where he met lots of other free-spirited and colorful birds :)

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The best of these Sunday mornings were those when I made doughnuts with my Mom. We'd use tubes of Pillsbury Biscuit dough, twisting the cardboard cylinder until it popped open. The dough came out in little pre-cut circles, and we'd lay out each one and cut it into quarters, then roll each quarter into a ball. My Mom was in charge of heating the oil in our big ole' Fry Daddy. I'd hand the dough balls to her, and she'd toss them into the oil to fry. She pulled them out minutes later, and right when they were cool enough to handle (I burned my little fingers many-a-time in anticipation of that moment), I'd toss them into one of three tupperware containers, each one filled with a different sweet mixture, and I'd snap the lid closed and start to shake away. One container was filled with powdered sugar, one with granulated sugar, and one with granulated sugar and cinnamon, my *favorite!* At last, I'd pull the sweetened doughnuts out of the containers and place them onto one of our white plates, licking my fingers as I arranged them into a little pyramid.

These muffins remind me of those mornings in Illinois...my Mom at my side in the kitchen; my Dad in the family room, reading, the newspaper spread out in front of him; and my brother upstairs, still snoring, deep in slumber, slowly waking as the smells of doughnuts and scrambled eggs and bacon wafted up into his bedroom from the busy kitchen... :)

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Doughnut Muffins
Adapted from recipe by Downtown Bakery in Healdsburg, CA

Makes 12 standard or 24 mini muffins

Muffins
12 Tbs. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 scant cup sugar
2 large eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
½ Tbs. plus 1 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. baking soda
1 scant tsp. salt
½ tsp. nutmeg
½ cup plus 1/3 cup milk
1/8 cup buttermilk

Dipping Mixture
8 Tbs. unsalted butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 Tbs. cinnamon

To make these *deeeelicious* muffins, position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat it to 350ºF. 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. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg. In a small bowl, 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 over-mix. Grease and flour a standard-size muffin tin or two mini-muffin tins. Scoop enough batter into each tin so that the top of the batter is even with the rim of the cup. Bake the muffins until firm to the touch, 30 to 35 minutes if using a standard-size tin, less if you’re using mini-muffin tins.

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Now comes the fun! Melt the butter for the dipping mixture. Whisk together the sugar and cinnamon. When the muffins are just cool enough to handle, remove them from the tins, use a pastry brush to brush them all over with the melted butter, and then roll them in the cinnamon sugar.

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Finally, serve them on a pretty little old-fashioned tray and invite your friends over for brunch!