By: Claudia Casal

Culture Editor

Every four years, the Olympics roll around, the ultimate platform for record-breaking performances and global competition. This year, the Olympics spotlighted Henrik Christiansen and his favorite post-competition treat: chocolate muffins.

These ganache-filled rich treats made their debut when the swimmer posted a TikTok rating the different food at the Olympians’ dining halls. He rated the chocolate muffins “11/10 insane.” Soon enough, Christiansen appeared on TikTok featuring his face covered in chocolate, professing his love for muffins, revealing several muffins in his bedside drawer, and even getting kidnapped by the muffin. Because Christiansen competes in endurance swimming events, he can eat higher calorie food like the ganache-filled muffin. 

With so much hype around the muffin, and so many Olympians coming forward to share their opinions, the hunt for the recipe began. That was until the TikToker Keilin Zhang discovered the muffin’s origins: Coup de Pates, a French food supplier . However, it seems only culinary professionals can order them. Zheng quickly ordered a few hundred muffins and opened a pop-up in New York City, selling hundreds of muffins. Many people shared their muffin dupes and copycat recipes to see if Christiansen was right about the muffins. To truly know, I had to try them myself.

Using Kassie Mednieta’s recipe, I made these muffins, although with a few alterations. The recipe calls for dutch-processed cocoa powder, but I just used the Hershey’s Cocoa Powder I have in my pantry. I substituted corn syrup with a combination of honey and maple syrup, and instead of milk powder, I used regular milk. It took me about an hour and a half to make the muffins and another half hour to make the ganache and fill the muffins with it. As for the recipe, it recommends you let the batter rest for 30 minutes before baking them to let the gluten rest and to freeze the baked and filled muffins. Freezing them, although it may seem strange in hindsight, is a similar process to how Coup de Pates distributes them. Coup de Pates likely freezes the baked muffins and ships them off to bakeries for them to defrost and serve. Mednieta claims that the flavors combine and the texture becomes more fudgy after defrosting them. 

After trying these muffins, it’s safe to say that Christiansen was right. I love the moist texture of these cupcakes, although they are very chocolatey and rich. As I’m not a huge fan of having a lot of rich chocolate, just one muffin is enough for me. These muffins are perfect with a glass of milk while rewatching your favorite Olympic and Paralympic highlights.

(Sources: NBC, TikTok)