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Dessert

Date Muffins

A sweet muffin made with dates, butter, sugar, flour, cornstarch, baking powder, milk, and egg yolks and whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Date Muffins

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Date Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  3. Sift together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt.

  4. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk, beating well after each addition.

  5. Stir in the chopped dates.

  6. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased muffin tin and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + datestop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Add richness and tenderness, and help bind the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure as the batter sets in the oven.
Cornstarch
Softens the crumb, giving a lighter, more tender texture than flour alone.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the muffins rise and become light.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they add lift and an airy texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten egg whites trap air that makes the muffins rise. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, leaving dense muffins. Fold gently, just until no white streaks remain.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, sugar, flour, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Datesthe original

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

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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