When you think of Greek (or Mediterranean) salad, what kind of ingredients come to your mind? I guess mostly olives, tomatoes, feta.. maybe some herbs… onions? Yes, so imagine these muffins like a salad bundled up in a muffin form!

 

 

These muffins are perfect for many things: you can eat them like bread with a main dish, you can pair them with a light, green salad to make a light meal, you can eat them in breakfast / brunch or you can eat them with tea or coffee like a snack at any time of the day.

 

 

I adapted the recipe from a Finnish cookbook about snacks. I pretty much remained loyal to the recipe, but I increased the amount of basil and olives and I changed the instructions. The original recipe calls for black olives and that’s what I used here myself too, however, I think kalamata or green olives would also work perfectly.

 

 

I will be doing these muffins for a birthday catering on Saturday. 80 of them! My customer does not like olives and onions so I will omit these and just add a bit more sun-dried tomatoes instead. You can easily make this kind of adjustments yourself. You can also make other changes such as adding other dried herbs (maybe thyme or oregano) or using a different kind of cheese (like goat cheese). Just use your imagination and listen to your taste buds!

 

Enjoy your salty muffins at any time of the day!

 

 

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Ingredients:

 

Difficulty: ★☆☆ (Easy)
(makes 12 muffins)

 

Printable PDF-recipe (no photos)

 

4 1/2 dl (or 1 1/2 cups + 5 tbsp) all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp dried basil
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 eggs
200 gr. kermaviili (or sour cream, if you are not in Finland)
1 dl (or 1/3 cup + 4 tsp) milk
5 tbsp olive oil, plus a bit more to grease the muffin tin
20 black (or other kind of your favourite) olives, cut into 2-3 pieces
about 3 heaped tbsp (or 75 gr) sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, cut in small pieces
1 medium size red onion, diced
100 gr feta cheese, cut in cubes

 

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1. Preheat the oven to 200C.

 

2. In a medium bowl, put the dry ingredients (the first 6 ingredients above) and whisk a little.

 

 

 

 

3. In a big mixing bowl (or in the bowl of a standing mixer), put eggs and whisk a little.

 

 

 

4. Add kermaviili / sour cream and milk, whisk more until you get a smooth mixture.

 

 

 

 

5. Add olive oil and whisk until smooth.

 

 

 

6. Add dry ingredients mixture and fold using a spatula.

 

 

 

7. Add olives, sun-dried tomatoes and red onions and fold gently until all are spread evenly in the batter.

 

 

 

 

 

8. Add feta and fold gently until it is spread evenly in the batter.

 

 

 

9. Grease the muffin tins generously with olive oil (you can also use vegetable oil or soft butter if you like). Divide the batter equally in 12 pieces.

 

 

 

10. Put the muffin tin in medium rack of the oven and bake for about 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean and the surface is browned nicely. Let the muffins cool for 5 minutes in the muffin tin after baking and then transfer them onto a wire rack to cool completely. Enjoy!