Remember the chocolate muffins, the ones they were serving in the Olympic Village in last summer’s Paris Olympics and Paralympics, the ones the athletes were posting all over social media?
(Good luck looking for actual news stories about the popularity of the muffins; an internet search now just gets you a ton of recipe suggestions.)
I made some.
We didn’t get to eat any of the cake at our wedding, so every year for our anniversary we find (or make) some kind of cake dessert. It’s a fun way to share our memories of a lovely day.
I had been wanting to try making the Olympic muffins (or, rather, a dupe), but 1) as it turns out, neither of us is a huge fan of sweets larger than, say, an Oreo, 2) one of us can’t do dairy without facing significant, unpleasant, consequences, and 3) frankly, our summer stayed hot for longer than usual and I haven’t wanted to spend a lot of time baking.
They were (are… we still have several of them) good. Texturally, they’re more like muffins than cupcakes. They’re very chocolate-y, and rich, so definitely dessert. (It’s unlikely you’ll need or want more than one at a time.) The recipe uses a lot of sugar, so I was surprised that they aren’t too sweet.
Non-dairy baking options have come a long way in the last few years, so I swapped the butter and heavy cream 1:1 for non-dairy options, and the recipe worked well (at least the chemistry worked as I expected it to — I can’t say whether there are significant flavor differences). I also used allergen-free chocolate chips, because you’d be surprised how many chocolate makers list milk as an ingredient.
Next time I make these, I’m going to make the filling before working on the muffins, so it has more time to cool. I followed the order of the recipe, and felt like the filling was still too warm to work with when it was time to fill the warm muffins.
Carmen Yount 