Skip to main content
Dessert

Date Muffins

A sweet muffin made with dates, flour, sugar, lard, eggs, milk, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Date Muffins

Why it works: Cinnamon and dates work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 283 recipes. Both carry anethole, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Date Muffins

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Cream the lard and sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, salt, and cinnamon.

  3. Alternately mix in the milk and flour with the baking powder.

  4. Beat the mixture for a moment.

  5. Fold in the chopped dates.

Bake

  1. Preheat muffin pans and oil them well.

  2. Fill the pans two-thirds full and bake at 400°F (200°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. Cinnamon + datestop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together283 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Lard
Adds fat that keeps the muffins tender and moist.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the muffins set.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the muffin crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the muffins rise in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the crust brown.
Dates
Add sweetness and moisture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Alternately mix in the milk and flour with the baking powder. Mixing in flour and milk in alternating additions keeps the batter smooth and well combined. Overmixing once the flour is in develops gluten, which can make the muffins tough, so stop mixing as soon as the batter is even.

Swap the dates

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, flour, cinnamon. 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.

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesStuffed DatesStuffed Dates32 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes