Do Dates With Butter Actually Taste Like Cookie Dough?

Every time my mom baked cookies while I was growing up, I would, without fail, sneak a bite or two of the cookie dough. In fact, if I still lived at home, I’d definitely still be grabbing chunks of cookie dough whenever she was whipping up a batch of baked goods.

But unfortunately, now that I’m an adult living in my own apartment, the justified health warnings about the dangers of eating raw flour and raw eggs — not to mention the cost of the latter — keep me from making a big batch of cookie dough and just digging in with a spoon. To fill the cookie dough-sized void in my heart and diet, I decided to try a simple snack that’s been making the rounds on TikTok and Instagram for several months: dates stuffed with butter and topped with salt.

If you’ve scrolled through food videos for more than a few hours in the past year, then it’s likely you’ve noticed a common trend, and it’s easy to understand the appeal. In addition to requiring just three ingredients, creators are enticing audiences with the bold claim that this treat tastes like cookie dough.

This snack is particularly appealing if you’re trying to cut down on refined sugar or can’t eat gluten, and it’s convenient for anyone who is short on time. But does it actually taste like the pure, decadent joy of raw cookie dough? I endeavored to find out.

Do dates with butter and salt taste like cookie dough?

The short answer is “kind of.” Unsurprisingly, a date filled with a pat of butter and a sprinkle of salt doesn’t taste exactly like cookie dough — you’ll definitely notice the difference — but it comes much closer than I expected.

First, a soft, plump date has a similar thickness, bite, and texture to a chunk of cookie dough. While the date is slightly more fibrous, making them not texturally identical, it feels a lot like you’re biting into sticky, dense dough. As you chew, a date has a slightly grainy texture, and when combined with its caramelized sweetness, it almost gives the impression that you’re eating brown sugar — a sensation and flavor that strongly reminds me of cookie dough.

The richness of the butter is essential, as it balances the extreme sweetness of the date itself, and makes the treat taste exceptionally decadent — it has strong notes of brown butter, reminiscent of the best chocolate chip cookies.

To truly satisfy your cookie dough craving, don’t skip the salt, which adds complexity and balance. Together, these three components provide much of what you seek in cookie dough: rich, soft, sticky, sweet, and with a touch of salt in every bite. While this won’t completely satisfy your craving for cookie dough, if you’re in search of something that fulfills that desire and is much more weeknight-friendly, this will do the trick.

How do you make this snack?

For this sweet treat, you’ll want to start with Medjool dates. This variety of date is known for its large size, soft texture, and caramel-like brown sugar taste. All three of these qualities are essential for both mimicking the flavor of cookie dough and allowing the date to easily hold butter. Other date varieties, like the Deglet Noor, are smaller and firmer, making them logistically more difficult to transform into what is essentially a small sandwich inside a date.

You can either purchase pitted dates or pit them yourself. Once the pit is removed, open it up lengthwise (a pitted date will already be cut on one side and should be easy to simply open), but do not tear it completely into two halves. You want the skin on one side of the date to remain intact, like a hinge holding the two halves together.

Cut a small dab of cold, unsalted butter — around ⅛ to ¼ of an inch thick — and place it inside the opening you’ve made in the date. Finally, top it off with a sprinkle of salt. Many creators online have used flaky sea salt to garnish the snack, but regular kosher salt works just as well. 

Be generous with the amount of salt you add to balance out the intensely sweet flavor of the dates. (If you only have salted butter available, you can definitely use that, but reduce the amount of salt you sprinkle on top accordingly.)

If you can’t have dairy, I recommend using a cultured vegan butter to fill your dates. You could also try coconut oil, as long as it’s kept cool enough to maintain a solid texture, but it won’t have the tanginess that dairy butter or its cultured substitutes impart.

How you can customize this treat

While this snack can be kept to just three ingredients, you can also customize it with some easy additions if you’d like. The most popular topping for these butter dates, and the one I enjoyed the most after trying several variations, is chocolate chips. Not only do the chocolate chips give the sweet bites the flavor of chocolate chip cookie dough, but they also provide a pleasant textural contrast to the softness of the other ingredients. Bittersweet chocolate chips work best, because the date is already quite sweet.

Consider adding a sprinkle of cinnamon to the dates for an oatmeal cookie vibe, or include a small amount of your favorite nut butter if you wish. Just ensure you place the cinnamon inside the date under the butter — you don’t want to risk inhaling loose cinnamon — and avoid using too much, as it can be quite potent. If you decide to add nut butter, slightly reduce the amount of dairy butter to prevent an overly rich snack.

I’ve also heard that mixing dates, chocolate, peanut butter, and a pinch of salt creates a sweet treat reminiscent of a Snickers bar, which gives me another idea for what to do with the box of dates in my pantry.