Saturday mornings as a morning person are THE BEST.  While weekday mornings force even the best of sleepers out of bed by seven (looking at you Thomas), I reserve my extra time on weekend mornings for elaborate breakfast spreads.  While I never sacrifice taste for anything, I try to make my weekday breakfasts on the healthier side of healthy-ish.  Weekday breakfasts normally take the route of some variation of oatmeal and granola, and can be made quickly without fuss.

But Saturday mornings I typically have a luxurious couple hours to whip up a slightly fussier breakfast that slides the dial a little bit to the other side of healthy-ish.  I still stick to all whole foods (processed food, in my opinion, just doesn’t taste as good.  And as I said, I never sacrifice taste).  By sticking to whole foods from scratch, I also ensure the meal won’t leave me feeling *bleh* for whatever weekend warrior activity awaits.

Last Saturday featured overnight waffles, while this week I went in the breakfast buffet direction.  Blueberry muffins, scrambled eggs, bacon, and some extra fancy maple-lemon butter.  The pictured blueberry muffins are a work in progress. I started with Smitten Kitchen’s perfect blueberry muffins, but am tweaking them with a little less sugar and a few more whole grains.  So basically turning them into my perfect blueberry muffins.

However, the maple-lemon butter topping requires no further tweaking.  Slightly sweet and magically bright, the lemon zest speckled rectangle of buttery goodness was the precise amount of over-the-top required for a Saturday breakfast spread.  Delectable on muffins, this butter would be splendid atop any breakfast treat you have planned (and since tomorrow is Mother’s day, I hope you have some delicacy in the works).  If we have any left come Monday, I think it will even feature prominently in my morning oats.  Holding on to the weekend, one pat of maple-lemon butter at a time 🙂

Maple-Lemon Butter

serves…depends on how much butter you like

The Stuff

5 tablespoons room temperature unsalted butter (if using salted butter, simply omit the salt below)

2 teaspoons maple syrup

1 teaspoon lemon zest

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt; more to taste

The How

1. Combine all ingredients in a small bowl, and mash thoroughly with the back of a fork.
2. Either serve directly from bowl, or to go even more over the top get out a piece of parchment paper and shape butter into a rectangle.  Refrigerate for 20 minutes before serving.