At-Home Olympic Village Chocolate Muffins Recipe

While the Olympics may be the world's largest sporting event, not all of the news revolves around who won or lost. The global audience is also fascinated by tales of life in the Olympic Village. At the 2024 Paris Olympics, one of the biggest stories revolved around the dining hall. Before the event, organizers were touting the fact that the offerings would be high-quality and less reliant on fast food than some past Olympics. Despite the presence of celebrity chefs, the food overall received mixed reviews. But the one item deserving of a gold medal was the double chocolate muffin that we've recreated here. These muffins were the real superstars of the menu — the Simone Biles or Katie Ledecky of the Olympic Village dining hall, if you will — and drew nothing but rave reviews.

Developer Leah Maroney nailed her recreation of these viral muffins with this medal-worthy recipe. She describes them as "incredibly decadent and deeply chocolatey." They're nice and moist, they have a fine crumb, and the texture is dense but not too heavy. Maroney also assures us, "They are simple to make, since the melted chocolate center is simply a high-quality chocolate bar," making them well within reach of even non–Olympic caliber cooks.

The batter for these chocolate muffins is made with flour, cornstarch, cocoa powder, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, buttermilk, eggs, butter, vegetable oil, vanilla extract, and espresso. This last ingredient, rather than making the muffins mocha-flavored, actually serves to intensify the chocolatey taste and appearance. The mix-ins — chocolate chips and a broken-up chocolate bar -– add another dimension to the overall chocolate-ness.

Combine the flour, cornstarch, cocoa powder, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.

In a separate bowl, combine the buttermilk, eggs, melted butter, vegetable oil, and vanilla extract until smooth.

Using a hand mixer, combine the wet mixture with the dry mixture until smooth.

Add in 1 ½ cups chocolate chips and the hot espresso and mix again until smooth.

Cover and allow the mixture to rest for 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 425 F.

Line eight jumbo muffin tins with parchment paper or muffin cups.

Add batter until the cups are full.

Cut the dark chocolate bar into 8 equal pieces. Add 1 piece of dark chocolate to each muffin and gently press the chocolate into the center. Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with the remaining chocolate chips.

Bake in the preheated oven for 8 minutes, and then lower the temperature to 350 F and bake for an additional 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Allow the muffins to cool, and then serve.

The reason the Olympic Village chocolate muffins became so famous has to do with one man. Even if Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen, aka "Muffin Man," doesn't bring home any medals for Team Norway, he's already struck comedy gold on TikTok. His Olympic Village videos showcase an endearing goofiness, but the best ones all revolve around his love for the chocolate muffins. He says that these muffins are the best thing about life in the Village and rates them an 11 out of 10.

Once Christiansen started praising the muffins, they were soon elevated to must-try status for the other athletes in the Village. So popular were they that supplies would sometimes run short, and muffin suppliers Sodexo Live! estimated that they would run through 100,000 of these over the course of the event. Once the 2024 Olympics are in the history books, though, how will Christiansen and his fellow Olympians make do without their favorite muffins? We can only hope that they'll find their way to this recipe for that daily dose of chunky, chocolatey goodness.

If you've tried making muffins before but found the results disappointing, don't be discouraged. With a few easy tweaks, you can turn the next batch into something bakery-worthy. It all starts with the batter — adding cornstarch allows for softer muffins with a finer, more delicate crumb. Once you've stirred all of the ingredients together, you should also allow the batter to sit for half an hour or so. This rest period will give the starch some time to absorb the liquid, thus making for fluffier muffins.

While many muffin recipes may call for filling the cups only partway, filling them all the way to the top allows for a larger dome, which is, after all, the best part. Starting the muffins off at a high temperature and then lowering it partway through the baking time also helps that dome form. Once the muffins are done, the final step is removing them from the pan, and using cupcake liners will ensure that they come out intact. If you can't find jumbo-sized liners, you can DIY them using 4-inch squares of parchment paper tamped down into the wells with a heavy, cylindrical object.