Banana Date Muffins

I'm always looking for good recipes to use dates in because I ALWAYS have dates on hand for these.  I guess it's not a bad thing to only eat dates paired with bacon.  However, I'm trying to branch out.  These were easy to make and tasted yummy!

Ingredients:
2 ripe bananas
1/2 cup vegetable oil (next time I'll try replacing the oil with applesauce)
2 eggs
3/4 -1 cup chopped dates
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups self rising flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. of cinnamon (optional)
1 tsp. vanilla (optional)

1.  Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Lightly grease a muffin pan and set aside; you could also use baking cups if you like. 
2.  Mash bananas with a fork and mix well with remaining wet ingredients.  In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients and add to wet ingredients until just combined.
3.  Fill muffin cups 1/2-2/3 full.  Bake for 18-20 minutes or until done.
4.  Serve muffins with butter/jam or dress them up with some cream cheese frosting!

*While I thought these were moist and delicious, they tasted pretty close to regular banana muffins.  The date flavor was very mild.  Next time I make them I'm going to add at least 1 1/4 cups of chopped dates.

Source: Nigella.com