National Muffin Day Date in the current year: February 20, 2024

The term “muffin” can refer to two distinct types of individually portioned baked products: one is flatbread and the other is quickbread. Flatbread muffins are often called British muffins, whereas quickbread muffins are sometimes described as American muffins, especially outside of the United States. Since National Muffin Day is an American holiday, it is dedicated to quickbread muffins.

Muffins are similar to cupcakes in size and cooking methods, but there are several differences. Cupcakes tend to be sweet and are usually topped with frosting and other decorations, whereas muffins are available in both sweet and savory varieties and are rarely decorated but may have berries, nuts, chocolate chips, bran or poppy seeds mixed into the batter.

The origins of National Muffin Day are unclear, but the holiday became what it is today in 2015, when Jacob Kaufman and Julia Levy decided to transform it into a charity event. Jacob is a tech lawyer from San Francisco who has a habit of handing out muffins to homeless people on his way to work, and Julia is a communications specialist who used to run a blog named Why We Give focused on “ordinary philanthropists”.

The two connected when Julia reached out to Jacob to interview him for her blog, hit it off, and came up with the idea of taking an ordinary food holiday and flipping it around to focus on giving back to the community. They encourage people to celebrate National Muffin Day by baking muffins and giving them out to homeless people.

But why bake? Can’t you make do with store-bought muffins? Well, you could, but there is a very specific reason why Kaufman and Levy insist on homemade muffins. Since baking takes time and effort, a lot of people would only bake for those they care about, which makes baking an act of kindness and love. When you give homemade muffins to a stranger in need, you show them that you care.

Of course, a muffin or even a dozen muffins won’t solve the problem of homelessness, but that’s not the goal of National Muffin Day. The goal is to show kindness to strangers, make people aware of the needs in their community, and encourage them to do anything they can to help those in need. You can bake muffins on your own or host a muffin baking party for your family and friends – whatever your are comfortable with.

Baking and giving out muffins isn’t the only way to celebrate National Muffin Day. You can give back to your community in any way you can, for example, volunteer at your local soup kitchen or homeless shelter, donate to a homeless charity of your choice (the team behind National Muffin Day suggest to donate in $12 increments to symbolize a 12-cup muffin tin), organize a charity garage sale, etc. And don’t forget to post pictures of your muffins on social media with the hashtags #NationalMuffinDay, #MuffinDay and #givemuffins to spread the word about the holiday and its cause.