Name: Nut and Fruit Muffins
Ingredients: ½ cup bread flour; 3 teaspoons baking powder; ¾ teaspoon salt; ¼ cup brown sugar; 1 cup graham flour; ⅓ cup broken walnut meats; 6 dates, cut in pieces; ¾ cup milk; 2 tablespoons melted shortening

Why it works: Walnut and dates work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 302 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Nut and Fruit Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Mix and sift the bread flour, baking powder, salt, and brown sugar.
Add the graham flour, walnuts, dates, beaten egg, milk, and melted shortening.
Beat the mixture thoroughly.
Pour into muffin tins and bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 18 to 20 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Walnut + datestop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together302 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Bread + datestop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together100 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,035 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, flour, sugar, walnut, meat, milk):

Figfits better
Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, sugar, walnut, meat, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.