Maple Pecan Oat Muffins. Incredibly tender, large crumbed muffins, perfect for any time you want an excuse to eat a pancake-flavoured cake for breakfast.

Instagram! I love it. It’s definitely my favourite of all the social platforms. Maybe it’s that I’m a visual person. Or maybe I like that the lens of Instagram seems to be turned outwards, and people don’t just post selfies and talk about what they’re doing, they post things they think are beautiful or fun or useful. It also seems to me to have the lowest instances of buttheads, and the highest instances of creative types. I like the way Instagram encourages me to look for beautiful vignettes in everyday life (I rarely share them, though, because my phone camera is a potato), and that it lets me see what small details other people notice. I guess I’m just a snoop.

I received an Instagram message the other day, which I totally didn’t see for at least three days. Here’s the thing, unless I’m following you, I don’t actually get notifications for those – and I get hardly any, so I rarely check it. So anyway, the message was actually lovely, from a girl who’s Instagram account makes me think we would get along great. She was asking me for a Maple Pecan muffin recipe! She said she was going away with her boyfriend and wanted a realllly good muffin to take with; an impulse I can absolutely relate to. Sadly, I didn’t get the message until after the weekend, and even more sadly I realised I don’t actually have one.

So, you guessed it, I rolled up my sleeves and made myself some damn muffins. I actually have a go-to muffin formula (honed over many years) but it was a little tricky incorporating the maple. Replacing dry sugar with liquid sugar does funky things to a batter. After much trial and error this is the version I like the best. It’s smokily perfumed with maple, big chunks of meaty pecans, and has a little extra texture from some oats. I actually tried one batch with some white chocolate chips (amazing) but that definitely takes these out of pre-10am territory.

My favourite way to eat these is actually on day two. Somehow the maple seems to bloom in the muffins with a little time, making it a more pronounced smoky sweetness. Then, because I’m all about taking things to the next level, I like to slice a muffin in half, and throw it under the grill. The grill gives you some crispy-burny edges, and heats the rest of the muffin back to day-one-freshness. After that (healthy eaters look away) I top it with some salted butter and a tiny extra drizzle of maple. Someone bring me a black coffee and then stick a fork in me because I am so, so done.

xx Sarah.