Olympic Chocolate Muffins Recipe
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Updated Jan 17, 2026, Published Aug 07, 2024
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Norweign swimmer, Henrik Christensen, has made everyone crave these triple chocolate muffins from the Olympic village dining hall. I now think of them as the official Olympic Chocolate Muffins. They’re tall bakery-style chocolate muffins that have a bit of ganache in the center, a large crumb and square chocolate chunks. Delicious!
Like everyone else, I’m so into the Paris 2024 Olympics. I find the athletes so inspiring and I love watching them achieve their dreams; it’s truly amazing. But my favorite thing that has come out of some of the coverage online has been the obsession that the athletes have (mostly swimmer, Henrik Cristensen a.k.a. “The Muffin Man”) has had with these muffins!
I was craving them so much; I knew I had to make them. I did some research and I found that it’s most likely coming from this French food supplier called: Coup de Pates.
Ingredients You’ll Need for these Olympic Chocolate Muffins
- Three types of chocolate is used in this muffin: we have baking cocoa, chocolate ganache made with dark chocolate and milk chocolate chunks.
- Neutral oil. I love using oil in muffins or cakes. It adds a ton of moisture and it makes these muffins have a large crumb while also being delicious. You can use vegetable oil, canola oil or avocado oil.
- Buttermilk. This will give the muffins a super fluffy texture. I love using buttermilk.
- Instant Espresso Powder. This will give these chocolate muffins even more of a deeper, richer flavor. Instant espresso powder will really compliment the chocolate in a delicious way.
For the rest of the ingredients (and the measurements), please see the recipe card below!
How to Make this Olympic Chocolate Muffins Recipe
- Mix together the wet ingredients in a medium bowl: sugar, oil, egg, vanilla extract, salt and instant espresso powder.
2. Sift in the cocoa powder and flour.
3. Next, pour in the warm buttermilk and mix.
4. Transfer the batter to the muffin liners. And top with a few chocolate chunks.
5. While the muffins are baking, make the ganache. Warm up the heavy cream and pour it over the chopped chocolate. Let it sit for 2-3 minutes. Whisk until smooth.
6. Allow the muffins to cool for 10 minutes, just so they’re cool enough to handle.
7. Using a paring knife, remove a bit of the center. And pipe in the ganache. Serve and enjoy!
How to Get the Perfect Domed Muffin Top
The secret to perfectly domed bakery-style muffins is to bake them at two temperatures.
- Preheat oven to 350F. When the muffins go in, raise the oven’s temperature to 425F and bake for seven minutes.
- Then, turn the heat down to 350F and bake for an additional 10-12 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.
What this does: The initial high heat gives the muffins a jolt resulting in super tall muffins. I do this trick with my Blueberry Muffins and swear by it!
Recipe FAQs
I haven’t tried it (obviously) but reports of lack of protein for athletes, undercooked meats and food that is under seasoned, makes me think that the food at the Olympics Dining hall isn’t very good. But the muffins have a great reputation lol.
In an airtight container, stored in the fridge, they’ll be good for up to a week.
I love to eat muffins with coffee like my Horchata Coffee, Mint Vanilla Iced Coffee, Pumpkin Spice Latte or Iced Matcha Latte.
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Desserts
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Olympic Chocolate Muffins Recipe
Video
Equipment
- 1 muffin pan
- 2 Medium bowls
- 1 small saucepan
Ingredients
Chocolate Muffins:
- 125 (1/2) grams (cup) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1/4 cup neutral oil, (such as vegetable, canola or avocado oil)
- 1 teaspoon instant coffee
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract , homemade or store-bought
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 (120) cup (g) all-purpose flour
- 35 (1/3) grams (cup) baking cocoa
- 150(5) ml(ounces) buttermilk, warmed
- Handful milk or dark chocolate chunks
Chocolate Ganache:
- 3 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
Instructions
To Make the Chocolate Muffins:
- Preheat oven to 350F. In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, egg, neutral oil, instant coffee, vanilla and salt. We want a smooth mixture. Sift in the baking soda and salt; mix. Next, sift in the all-purpose flour and baking cocoa. Pour in the warm buttermilk and mix one last time.
- Add four tulip muffin liners to a muffin tin. If you’re using regular muffin liners, add six! Fill up the muffin liners. Top with a handful of chocolate chunks.
- Place in the oven and raise the oven temperature to 425F and bake for 7 minutes. Bring the temperature down to 350F and bake for another 10-12 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.
To Make the Ganache:
- While the muffins are cooling, make the ganache. Chop up the chocolate and add it to a heatproof bowl. Warm up the heavy cream and pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for 1-2 minutes and then mix it up until smooth. Transfer to a piping bag or ziplock bag.
- When the muffins have cooled a bit, use a paring knife to remove the center. Pipe the ganache in the center each of the muffins. Serve them up and enjoy.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Can you use a Bismark tip to pipe in the Gamache? Or will that not work?
That should work! I haven’t tried it but don’t see why it wouldn’t work out just fine.
These are great! I actually ended up with 5 tall muffins in the tulip liners. In the future I’ll double the recipe. I like that they manage to have such a light fluffy crumb while still being such a big muffin. I’ll probably skip the ganache step when I make these again, mostly out of laziness though. The ganache was a nice touch of an extra sweet, gooey surprise.
Amazing to hear!
This looks so delicious. I have to try this tonight.
Quick question, can you substitute buttermilk with whole milk? Or any other substitute suggested by you?
Hi Rafay,
You can try using 1/4 cup whole milk with two tablespoons sour cream or creme fraiche. But unfortunately you really need something acidic like the sour cream/creme fraiche/buttermilk to activate with the baking soda/baking cocoa.
Your ganache ratio seems to be off. After realizing I basically had chocolate milk, I looked up ratios on the Internet and seeing that even a glaze was 1:1 ratio of cream to chocolate (and going higher with chocolate for something firmer) where yours was 2:1, I added more chocolate to get something that was even usable, ending at 1:2 for something more akin to a pudding. Not sure if other users had the same issue, but should be pretty easy to verify. Thanks for the recipe! Turned out otherwise pretty decently with no alterations otherwise, using the tulip style papers and 425 oven technique.
Are you sure you’re using heavy cream?
the most delicious muffins!! i skipped the ganache and didn’t have tulip liners so i got six muffins. AMAZING. they were still tall and gorgeous and super moist. will make again.
Very nice recipe chef . Thank you for your effort .
glad you loved it!
I made these today. Soooo good!! I didn’t have tulip cupcake liners. The grocery store I went to didn’t have them either. But I had parchment paper, so I cut 6″x6″ squares. I cut a slit 2″ deep in the middle of all 4 sides and it made perfect tulip liners! These cupcakes really deserve the size and presentation of the tulip liners.
Apparently I cut the holes too big in the muffins for the ganache, because there was only enough for 2 muffins. So that was disappointing, but my fault. I should’ve paid more attention to your photos instead of just jumping to the recipe. Thanks for sharing this delicious recipe!
That’s so smart to make your own tulip liners! I saw someone do that online and thought it was very clever. Ahh yes I cut the holes in the tops pretty small but next time feel free to double the ganache if you want a lot of ganache in the muffins! So glad you loved them, Terry!!
I made these today and they were absolutely delicious ! Everybody loved them and I’ll definitely make them again.
omg amazing! love to hear this, maya! thanks for the feedback.
Delicious, easy and quicker than other similar recipes with no weird ingredients. I like the use of oil rather than butter because butter is very expensive here in the UK at the moment. Definitely a cheaper recipe which is so helpful in our cost of living crisis. I doubled the recipe (was worried they wouldn’t last long otherwise) and made 13 in cupcake cases. They rose a lot and spilt over slightly but it still worked quite well
wonderful to hear!! and yes, oil is always the way to go because they stay super moist!
made the muffins. SO good. i did the two temperatures too. i loved it.
I baked these last night when you posted the recipe and they were AMAZING. I didn’t have the tulip liners so I used the regular liners and had six super tall delicious muffins. I also skipped the ganache step and still A+++
Hi Maria,
Amazing! So glad you loved them!
Hi, I think you have the amounts and units of measurments for the cocoa powder and buttermilk all mixed up. Also, do we bake at 425 first for 10 minutes and then drop the temp to 350 right? So you would preheat to 425 first?
hi reehana, the measurements are correct. it’s 1/3 cup cocoa powder and 5 liquid ounces of buttermilk.
I’m going to definitely try these. I’m wondering though, are these made in the smaller standard muffin pans (12 muffin spaces) or the jumbo muffin pans (6 muffin spaces). I’m thinking jumbo but figured I’d ask.
these call for a regular muffin tin. you could use a jumbo if you want but i fear you’d only get two muffins that way. if you’re using a jumbo size muffin pan i would double the recipe for sure.
Hi. The recipe states to add warm buttermilk. Do you heat the buttermilk?
NOTED just changed this. yes, i like to heat it until just warm. this will help with accentuating the flavor in the cocoa powder. it’s not a *MUST* but it helps.
My pregnant self needs to make these to satisfy my craving! Just to clarify, you don’t preheat the oven to 425F and then put the muffins in, you do 350F and then right away turn it up to 425F right?
nope you don’t preheat it at 425F. you preheat it to 350F and then when you place the muffins in the oven you raise it to 425F. this rising in heat will help make super tall muffins. And then you turn it down to 350F for the remaining of the baking time.