Some people are watching the Olympics for Simone Biles. Some people watched for Stephen Nedoroscik, with his highly specialized pommel horse skills. And now, some people are watching for the chocolate muffin, which has taken over Olympic Village content on TikTok with its large chocolate chips and gooey melted chocolate center.
While many athletes have shared reviews of the food in the Olympic Village, it was the Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen who popularized the muffins. Within a week, Christiansen has made 10 TikTok videos about the muffins — the most popular of which has over 10 million views as of this writing. In an interview with the New York Times, Christiansen said the muffins were the first thing he tried in the dining hall. “They’re very rich, and I like that,” he said.
Christiansen’s videos, which sometimes feature the swimmer’s face smeared with chocolate, have become a global sensation, with almost all of his muffin videos hitting views in the millions, and other athletes now also making videos about the muffins. Those of us on MuffinTok have since found ourselves haunted by the question: Who makes these muffins, and is there any way to eat one, without being an Olympic athlete?
Yesterday, Kelin Carolyn Zhang shared a series of videos on TikTok in which she tried to track down the source of the muffins. This day-long deep dive was, she notes, a form of procrastination from her work as an independent designer.
Zhang first identified the “Decadent Chocolate Chunk Supreme Muffin” from Otis Spunkmeyer as a potential dupe, though commenters noted that they didn’t quite match: The Spunkmeyer muffins have chips, but not ganache topping. The chocolate-hazelnut-filled muffins from Delifrance also seemed close but not quite: They have the chocolate filling but not the chunks, and no athletes seem to have mentioned the muffin having a hazelnut flavor.
Zhang finally landed on the muffins from the French producer Coup de Pates. Indeed, a representative for Coup de Pates confirmed to Eater via email that the muffins are the company’s “Maxi Muffin Chocolat Intense.” “We work exclusively with food service professionals, some of whom are partners of the Olympic Village,” they said in an email, adding that the muffins can be found “in many countries around the world thanks to our clients and distributors.” (Interested food service professionals can contact the company’s export department, they noted.)
But since most of us in the United States have no business ordering a case of imported French muffins, the baker Kassie Mendieta, known as @ibakemistakes, has been trying to reverse engineer a recipe for the muffins for people to recreate at home. “I’ve spent — and I wish I was exaggerating about this — hours dissecting every video of these muffins, trying to get a good look at the crumb structure and the makeup of this muffin,” Mendieta says in a video of an initial recipe test, adding that a nice, clear, close-up photo from an Olympian would really help the process.
Part of the allure of the Olympic muffin is the absurdity of it: that Christiansen went to the Olympics to be recognized for his swimming and will leave it, at least in part, as the Muffin Guy. Being on Olympic Muffin TikTok feels like being in on a joke. “I just want to be a part of the moment; I think so does everyone else,” Zhang says. “Obviously I’m never going to be able to be in the Olympics… but it’s so much more attainable to get a chocolate muffin. Even if it’s not the chocolate muffin, you can be a part of the broader moment.” That you’d expect athletes to eat mostly “super clean” adds to the appeal.
Despite not being a perfect match, Zhang ordered a case of the Spunkmeyer muffins anyway; she hopes to share them with other Olympic muffin enthusiasts at a meetup in New York City. That being said, “I think any French restaurant in New York has an incredible opportunity to do a pop-up before the end of the Olympics,” Zhang adds.
“They don’t need to be a permanent importer of the muffins. Just figure out a way to get them to the US and do a one-day or a weekend pop-up… if a restaurant is like, This seems like too much work, call me, because I, you know, have the energy.”
Additional photo illustration credits: muffin photo via Coup de Pates; Olympic stadium photo via Shutterstock
