Sourdough Focaccia Bread Muffins [perfect for sharing]

If you love sourdough focaccia bread, then you are going to love these sourdough focaccia bread muffins! They are full of flavor! With a crispy, golden crust, soft, tender interior and any flavored toppings you heart desires, these sourdough focaccia bread muffins will be your favorites too!

Made just like a true sourdough focaccia, but baked in a muffin pan so that each individual piece of dough gets that crisp exterior, these are so much fun to make and eat.

If you love all things sourdough focaccia bread, make sure you try this sourdough cinnamon roll focaccia bread and this sourdough pizza focaccia bread too!

Why You'll Love This Recipe!

Everything You Love About Focaccia ... But Bite Sized - Seriously if you are a sourdough focaccia lover then these are just for you! Because they're individual serves, they all have that golden crispy exterior you love!

Pick n Mix Toppings - I think the the best thing about these sourdough focaccia bread muffins is that you can create a selection of toppings to suit everyone. Make 12 different flavors, or 6 of each or 3 of each ... you get the idea!

Perfect for Sharing - These sourdough focaccia muffins are perfect to take along to your next shared food occasion. You can even double the recipe if you want to, so you get 24 muffins. Everyone will be asking how you made them, especially if you serve them with a big dish of this easy bread dipping oil!

Ingredients

• Sourdough starter - This simple sourdough bread recipe requires a strong sourdough starter that's active and bubbly. You can also use sourdough discard with a little commercial yeast. Read about the difference between sourdough starter and sourdough discard. If using sourdough discard, I like to use 100g of sourdough discard plus around 4g of instant yeast. If your discard is from a very mature starter, you can choose not to add the yeast if you like. Just remember you'll have a much longer bulk fermentation time.
• Water 
• Bread Flour - don't use all purpose flour, you'll get the best result from using high protein bread flour.
• Salt - I use regular fine salt for making the dough and then add flaky sea salt to the top of the dough before baking in the oven.
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Rosemary Leaves -  you can use fresh or dried rosemary, or really any dried or fresh herbs you like. Italian seasoning is really lovely with this if you don't have fresh rosemary on hand. If your rosemary bush is laden with leaves, you might also like to try this sourdough olive bread or this sourdough parmesan and rosemary wreath.

How To Make Sourdough Focaccia Bread Muffins

I have created this easy sourdough recipe using my simple sourdough focaccia recipe as a guide. You might want to have a look at it if you haven't made focaccia bread before.

Weigh out your sourdough starter and water into a large bowl. Mix the water and starter together briefly. Then add flour and salt and mix whole lot together until it forms a sticky dough. You don't want any dry flour left at all.

Cover your bowl with cling film or a damp tea towel and let it sit for around 1 hour. It's ok if it's a little bit longer, it's not going to matter too much.

After the dough has been through autolyse you need to bring it together into a ball. Work your way around the bowl, grabbing the dough from the outside, stretching it up and over itself, into the centre. You should feel the dough strengthen as you do this. It doesn't have to be perfectly smooth or tight, just work around the bowl stretching and folding (around 10 - 15 times is perfect).

The dough should strengthen and become smooth and elastic.

Now you want to leave your dough to ferment. Cover it with a tea towel or plastic wrap and leave it alone to rise around 30%. I only allow the dough to rise a bit because you don't want super sticky, over fermented dough when you go to shape it into 12 smaller pieces (it's much harder than when you just need to tip the focaccia dough into a tray like you would normally).

Focaccia is super forgiving so it doesn't need to be perfect!

Before you start shaping the focaccia dough, add a teaspoon of olive oil into the bottom of each hole in a 12 hole muffin tin. I don't measure this - just pour approximately this amount into each hole. Set aside.

Once the dough has risen, you need to split it into 12 evenly sized portions. This can be a little messy, but my best advice is to use plenty of olive oil.

Tip the dough out onto a clean counter top.

Use a metal dough scraper to gently cut the dough in half, then cut each half into six equally sized portions (I don't weigh the dough for this as it's too messy. Just use your eye to get it close enough).

Rub your hands with a little olive oil and push each portion of dough into a muffin hole. Try to spread it across the bottom of the hole, but if you can't it will fill up as it rises again. It might seem like there's a lot of oil, but this is what will give you sourdough focaccia muffins their crispy, golden exterior when baked.

Let your dough rise again. Allow it to become pillowy and soft and a little bubbly. Depending on how active your starter is, this will take a few hours.

Once the dough is puffy and full of volume, you need to dimple the dough and add the toppings. I like to pour a little olive oil on each portion of dough and dimple them a little before putting my toppings on. This creates little crevices for the toppings to fall into (you can see this in the photo above).

Now place your desired toppings onto each portion of dough and use oiled fingers to push your fingertips into the dough and toppings to create dimples. You might see some bubbles as you do this. The toppings should be smushed into the sourdough focaccia dough.

In the photos you can see in this post I've chosen to make 4 x rosemary and sea salt, 2 x dill pickle and cheddar cheese, 2 x potato and rosemary, 2 x bacon, red onion and parmesan cheese and 2 x salami, olive and parmesan cheese. I love that I can make any combination of flavors I like (and it's so easy to please the whole family).

Preheat the oven to 220C (430F) while the dough proofs a little more and puffs up around the toppings you've added.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the sourdough focaccia muffins are golden brown all over (including the bottom).

Place onto a wire cooling rack to cool. They're best served warm with a dish of cultured butter - yum!

Topping Ideas for Sourdough Focaccia Bread Muffins

You are really limited only by your imagination when making these sourdough focaccia bread muffins! But here are a few topping ideas to get your creative ideas flowing (remember olive oil goes with everything)!

• cherry tomatoes and fresh basil leaves
• caramelised onions and fresh thyme
• garlic cloves and parmesan cheese
• olives and feta
• sun dried tomatoes and pesto
• roasted red peppers and goat's cheese
• fresh figs and prosciutto
• potato and rosemary
• artichokes and olive tapenade
• pickled jalapeños and cheddar cheese
• dill pickles and cheddar cheese
• feta and salami
• melted butter and cinnamon sugar

I love making a whole different array of flavor combinations when I make these sourdough focaccia muffins, especially if we are taking them to a gathering. People love trying new flavor combinations!

Baker's Timeline

These sourdough focaccia bread muffins are so forgiving time wise. Focaccia is one of those magical breads that can be a little under or a little over fermented and no one will really notice too much!

Here is my baking timeline for making these savory delights!

9pm - Before going to bed, feed your sourdough starter 1:3:3 so that it's bubbly and at peak when you wake up.

7am - Mix the sourdough focaccia dough together. Allow it sit for around an hour.

8am - Perform stretch and folds (one set is fine in this instance).

8.10am - Leave the dough covered at room temperature to bulk ferment (remember you only want 30% so it won't take too long).

12pm - Shape sourdough focaccia bread muffins and cover for second rise. Because you only let the dough rise 30% during bulk ferment, you want them to have a nice long second rise.

6pm - Add toppings and leave to proof while oven preheats.

6.30pm - Bake and enjoy with dinner!

You'll also find plenty of information on creating your own sourdough baking timeline. Remember this is just a sample - actual times will depend on the strength of your sourdough starter, temperature of your home and the flour you use.

How to Store + Freeze

These sourdough focaccia bread muffins are best eaten within about 12 hours of baking - so basically while they're fresh! They will go a bit hard and stale if you leave them overnight. You can gently warm them in the oven to refresh them, but if you can, eat them the day of baking.

They are perfect to freeze! Simply place cooled sourdough focaccia bread muffins into a ziplock bag or airtight container and freeze for up to 2 months. Thaw at room temperature and gently warm in the oven to refresh.

Share the sourdough love!