From the menu of: Duck’s Cosmic Kitchen

A: Cindy Diamond sent us this recipe with a note that it makes doughnuts so delicious Williams-Sonoma once considered adding it to their line of baking mixes. The recipe is proof positive that scrumptious doughnuts do not have to be fried.

Doughnut pans are available at most home goods stores, but lacking a doughnut pan, a muffin tin works just fine. The yield for this recipe will vary depending on the size of your doughnut tin.

For us, the recipe made three dozen doughnuts. If that’s more than you want to serve right away, bake them all and then only do the finishing steps for those you can consume within a day or two. Freeze the rest, dipping in butter and cinnamon sugar after thawing and when ready to serve.

Is there a recipe from a metro Atlanta restaurant you’d like to make at home? Tell us and we’ll try to get it. We’ll also test it and adapt it for the home kitchen. Because of volume, we can’t answer all inquiries. Send your request, your address and phone number to fromthemenu@gmail.com and put “From the menu of” and the name of restaurant in the subject line.

Duck’s Baked Cinnamon Sugar Doughnuts

Hands on: 30 minutes

Total time: 1 hour

Makes: 36

A tip for making neat doughnuts: scoop the batter into a piping bag or gallon-size food storage bag. If you’re using a food storage bag, cut off one corner. Squeeze the batter into the doughnut pan, filling it to just below the surface. The doughnuts will rise as they bake. If you overfill the pan, you’ll lose the doughnut shape as the dough rises.

If you don’t have enough doughnut pans to bake these all at once, the dough will sit while you bake the doughnuts in batches, or you can bake some of the batter in a lightly greased muffin tin.

6 cups White Lily all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 3/4 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 2/3 cups milk

1/4 cup buttermilk

1 1/4 pound (5 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, divided, more if needed

3 3/4 cups granulated sugar, divided

4 eggs

2 tablespoons cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease doughnut pans or muffin tins.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. Set aside.

In a small bowl, combine milk and buttermilk. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream 3/4 pound butter with 1 3/4 cups sugar. Beat 3 minutes, stopping if butter begins to look curdled. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat between each addition. Add one-quarter of the flour mixture and one-third of the milk mixture and quickly mix together. Repeat until all flour and milk are added, being careful not to overmix the batter.

Spoon the mixture into doughnut pans. Bake 20 minutes or until doughnuts are firm to the touch and lightly browned. Remove to a wire rack. Continue with remaining batter if necessary.

When doughnuts are cool enough to handle, melt remaining 1/2 pound butter. Pour into a medium bowl.

In another medium bowl, mix together remaining 2 cups sugar and cinnamon. Stir thoroughly to combine. Dip doughnuts first into melted butter, rotating to be sure all surfaces are covered. Do not soak the doughnuts in the butter. Then move to cinnamon sugar mixture and rotate to be sure all surfaces are covered. Move to serving platter. You may need more melted butter and cinnamon sugar. Can be made up to 2 days ahead.

Per doughnut: 286 calories (percent of calories from fat, 43), 3 grams protein, 38 grams carbohydrates, 1 gram fiber, 14 grams fat (8 grams saturated), 59 milligrams cholesterol, 206 milligrams sodium.