How to make an Olympic chocolate muffin like the one athletes love

Kassie Mendieta, known to her thousands of followers online as I Bake Mistakes, found out about the chocolate muffins at the Olympics the way most other people did: through Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen’s love letters to the treats on TikTok.

Christiansen, 27, a three-time Olympian, has made a name for himself this week for vlogging his obsession with the “choccy muffins” available to athletes at the Olympic Village in the suburbs of Paris. His most viral videos are absurdist, garnering millions of views for their off-kilter humor. One video in which Christiansen feigns being held hostage by the muffin has been watched more than 4 million times. The swimmer has become so popular as the “muffin man” that even fellow Olympians have gotten in on the joke, making their own videos when they find Christiansen in the wild, or joking that they have to get to the muffins before the swimmer does.

On Sunday, when Mendieta first noticed Christiansen, he had posted just a couple of TikToks about the muffin. (Now, there are 13 and counting.) In these videos, the muffin’s oozing chocolate center is on full display as he raves about them. In his first video trying the muffin, he called it “11/10” and “insane.”

Why not get the recipe straight from the source, the muffin supplier? Because the company is guarding the secret.

So Mendieta, who has been posting recipe videos online for two years since being laid off from a professional kitchen during the pandemic, decided to jump on the trend. Though she’s in the middle of moving cities, muffin duping took priority: She ordered the “very specific” muffin cups she needed and raced back home on Tuesday to her mostly bare kitchen in Los Angeles, now stocked with cocoa powder, flour and chocolate chips. She also dedicated the next few days to intense study of every Olympic muffin video she could find. “It’s the most insane internet sleuthing I’ve ever done,” Mendieta said.

While the experience has been stressful, people online are desperate for the recipe, and Mendieta doesn’t want to let them down.

“This is not just a run-of-the-mill chocolate muffin. There’s layers to it, so it does feel like there’s more pressure,” she said, citing the molten center, cakey texture and chocolate chunks that have captured the internet’s attention.

The muffin is the “Maxi Muffin Chocolat Intense” by French commercial patisserie and international distributor Coup de Pates, which has partnered with the Olympics to provide baked goods to the Village. “The recipe for this muffin with a melting chocolate center and chocolate chips,” the company told The Washington Post in an email, “is a ‘Coup de Pates’ secret crafted by our chefs.”

Mendieta and other baking influencers are determined to unlock the secret. Even for a recipe developer like Mendieta, though, it’s not easy. “It’s really hard to test this thing without having ever had the real muffin right in front of me,” she said. “It’s a muffin from 5,000 miles away that I’ve never crossed paths with.”

Hetal Vasavada, a cookbook author and baker known for her online presence as Milk and Cardamom, also decided to try her hand at the muffins when she saw a video of Christiansen holding four in his hands as he struts around the Olympic Village. She found it intriguing that in Paris, “the land of pastry, this is what they’re obsessing over,” Vasavada said. “I thought it would be croissants or some sort of laminated pain au chocolat, so I was curious and went through his TikToks, which fed the algorithm gods.”

Like many, Vasavada was drawn to the muffins’ gooey filling and deep, dark color, which she re-created using a blend of dark and milk chocolates. Over three recipes tested since the weekend — one that was more lava cake-esque with a standard muffin recipe, one that was more similar to a moist devil’s food cake, and the last one falling somewhere in between — she’s confident she has completed her task. She shared her recipe with her followers on Wednesday night.

Those same details — the runny chocolate core, the rich brown color — drew Mendieta to the muffins, which she’s still working to perfect.

When we speak on Wednesday night, it’s Mendieta’s second day of recipe testing, and version five of the chocolate muffin is in the oven. In just a few minutes, Mendieta will pull them out to find that, at least, they seem to have the right texture, the gooey ridges breaking up the domed muffin top. She didn’t think it would take her this long to develop the recipe. Looking back, she said, it was “so Olympian of me to be like, ‘Yeah, I got it’ on the first try,” but after baking until midnight the night before, she’s getting closer.

In her testing, she’s prioritizing a few things. One is the “perfectly round muffin top,” which can be difficult to achieve in a home oven due to the need for high, consistent heat, but which Mendieta said can be achieved if the muffin batter is chilled for a few hours, so that the starches can absorb the liquids (which makes for a taller bake). To get the right texture, which Mendieta said appears more cakey than a traditional muffin, her recipe (so far) has more sugar than standard. But the thinner batter also means it’s harder to keep the chocolate chunks from sinking to the bottom. That’s what test number five was trying to solve, Mendieta said.

For her recipe, Vasavada said she solved the problem of the sinking chocolate chips by whisking rather than folding the batter — as recipes usually call for bakers to do. While you normally wouldn’t want to overmix muffin batter, doing so in this case, while also double-sifting the dry ingredients, makes for a thicker batter, Vasavada said. “It makes the gluten build a little bit better, so when I put the chips on it holds,” she said.

Perhaps the most important detail, though, is that runny center.

“My first thought was that it was a ganache, kind of a chocolate lava cake where they baked something into the center of this muffin,” Mendieta said. That was where she started, but two hours later, Christiansen posted another video where she could see the muffin oozing from the top. “Now,” she said, “I definitely think it’s piped or injected in after the bake.” (Her TikTok followers aren’t convinced, though, so her most recent batch was half baked-in and half injected.)

Vasavada also piped ganache into her cored muffins, but Mendieta isn’t sure anymore that it’s ganache after all. Maybe, she said, it’s fudge: “A lot of people are saying, ‘Your filling looks lighter in color than the one in the video,’ so it’s either a ganache with a darker chocolate, or a fudge sauce with cocoa powder that’s going to make it a little darker.”

Mendieta has even taken to Coup de Pate’s website, where she found no ingredient list but did see a statement that it contains soy, gluten and dairy as allergens. The soy probably means that there’s canola or vegetable oil, so now she’s using that. She also figures that since the muffin is mass-produced, the ingredients are likely to be simpler than what she tends to go for, and the process can’t be too elaborate or else it would cost too much to make.

“I’m trying to be dialed in on everything that makes this muffin the Olympian of all muffins,” Mendieta said.

At the end of the day, her goal is to finish the recipe as soon as possible, even if that means more sleepless, cocoa-filled nights to come. The fans of the muffin — which grow in number with each passing hour — “are basically beating down my door at this point.”

The Post’s recipes editor, Becky Krystal, said she also studied the TikTok videos “like the Zapruder film,” grabbing the baton from Vasavada and running with her own adjustments in multiple tests. She changed a few things, including the ingredient proportions, mixing method and oven temperature to result in a muffin with a “softer, lighter, more tender crumb.”

“You can imagine how much I was nerding out about this last night,” she said.

Her and Vasavada’s relay effort is your reward: a super-chocolatey, decadent muffin that won’t fuel you to Olympic gold, but just might make you fall in love, like a certain Norwegian swimmer.

•••

Olympic Chocolate Muffins

Now you can have a homemade version of the Olympic chocolate muffins that athletes at the Paris Games have helped go viral. Loaded with melted and chopped chocolate in the batter, as well as a glossy ganache filling, they will hit the spot for any cocoa lover. In truth, these muffins are more dessert than breakfast, as they are essentially unfrosted cupcakes.

For tall, bakery-style muffins, buy tulip baking cups or make your own parchment paper liners; see Where to buy and Notes. If you use regular cupcake liners, the muffins will be slightly smaller, yielding more than a dozen. The yield may also vary depending on the size of the wells in your muffin pan.

Make ahead: The muffins and ganache need to be prepared and cooled completely before the muffins are filled, at least 30 to 40 minutes in advance of serving.

Storage: Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days. Refrigerate leftover ganache in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Where to buy: Tulip paper baking liners can be found at well-stocked supermarkets, baking specialty stores and online.

For the muffins

¾ cup (180 milliliters) whole or reduced-fat milk

¼ cup (60 milliliters) water

2 teaspoons instant coffee or espresso powder

½ cup (50 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably a mix of Dutch-process and natural

4 tablespoons (½ stick/56 grams) unsalted butter, cut into pieces

½ cup plus 1/3 cup (145 grams total) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chunks, divided, plus more for topping

2 cups (250 grams) all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon fine salt

½ cup (110 grams) packed dark brown sugar

½ cup (100 grams) granulated sugar

¼ cup (60 milliliters) neutral oil, such as vegetable or canola

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the ganache

2/3 cup (115 grams) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chunks

½ cup (120 milliliters) heavy cream

1/8 teaspoon fine salt

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees. Line a regular size muffin pan with cupcake liners, tulip baking cups or homemade parchment liners (see Notes).

In a small (2-quart) saucepan over medium heat, combine the milk, water, and instant coffee or espresso powder, and bring to a simmer, whisking occasionally. Add the cocoa powder and whisk until fully incorporated. Decrease the heat to low, add ½ cup (85 grams) of the chocolate chunks and the butter, and whisk until melted and smooth, about 1 minute. Remove from the heat and transfer the mixture to a large bowl to cool slightly.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt until well combined.

To the bowl with the chocolate mixture, add the brown sugar, granulated sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla, and whisk until thoroughly combined. Add about one-third of the flour mixture and whisk until incorporated. Add the remaining flour mixture and, using a flexible spatula, gently fold until almost no dry streaks remain. Then, gently fold in the remaining 1/3 cup (60 grams) of chocolate chunks and the chopped milk chocolate (or milk chocolate chips), until just combined. Do not overmix.

Using a No. 16 disher or ¼-cup (60-milliliter) measuring cup, evenly divide the batter among the muffin cups, filling each cup to the top of the muffin pan (or a little higher if using tulip baking cups or homemade liners). Sprinkle additional chocolate chunks and chopped milk chocolate (or milk chocolate chips) on top. Transfer the pan to the oven and immediately reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees. Bake for 22 to 24 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. (You don’t want any batter clinging, but you may hit pockets of melted chocolate with the toothpick.)

Let the muffins cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then use a butter knife or the wide end of a piping tip to cut or punch out an approximately ¾-inch-wide hole in the center of each muffin. (Snack on the centers or save them to use as an ice cream topping.) Let the muffins cool completely, about 30 minutes.

Make the ganache: While the muffins are baking, in a small (2-quart) saucepan over medium-low heat, combine the chocolate chunks, heavy cream and salt, and cook, stirring frequently, until melted and smooth. Remove from the heat and let cool completely, 30 to 40 minutes.

Once the muffins and ganache are completely cool, spoon or pipe the ganache into the center of each muffin, filling up the hole just until it starts to overflow. (Leftover ganache can be used as a filling or topping for other desserts, or chilled and rolled into truffles.) Serve immediately.

Substitutions: Bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chunks >> chopped bar chocolate or chips. Instead of two types of chocolate in the batter >> use all of one or the other. Prefer a sweeter ganache? >> Use milk chocolate instead.

Notes: To make tall cupcake liners, cut two 16-by-12-inch pieces of parchment paper each into 6 rectangles, about 2 2/3 by 2 inches. Crumple the pieces, then unfold and press into the wells of a muffin pan, using a small jar or bottle to tamp them down. (They may pop back up but will settle once they’re filled with batter.)

Serves 12 (makes 12 muffins)

Nutrition per muffin: 396 calories, 49g carbohydrates, 56mg cholesterol, 22g fat, 3g fiber, 6g protein, 10g saturated fat, 219mg sodium, 29g sugar

— Based on a recipe from blogger and cookbook author Hetal Vasavada.