viral olympic chocolate muffins (box mix dupe)

and now, a brief muffin interlude.

like the rest of the world, i was swept up in olympic muffin mania last month. unlike the rest of the world, 90% of my freezer was actually filled with aforementioned paris olympic village muffins.

let me explain.

in july, my roomie went viral for tracking down the original supplier of the olympic muffin and then importing over a thousand of them to nyc. 30 of those ended up in our apartment freezer.

how many muffins have we eaten at this point? i’ve lost track.

but with great privilege comes great responsibility. i had a duty to the people! i set out to develop a worthy dupe recipe using the easiest thing i could think of: box mix.

in my opinion, the original coup de pate recipe is very, very chocolatey but not too sweet. the crumb is soft, but has a light, spongey spring to it. the ganache is silky, even after freezing.

this dupe comes very close in flavor, except for a very light, artificial aftertaste that’s so subtle you might miss it. the crumb is even softer than the original, providing a melt-in-your-mouth texture (which some might prefer?).

my doctored box mix dupe holds its own against the internet’s best dupe recipes. you can see our surprise discovering this live with @thepancakeprincess.

this recipe is for all the chocolate loving busy bees. 5 minutes to throw together, 16 minutes to bake. you’ll spend less time on these olympic muffins than running to the grocery store.

notes

• i did extensive online research before deciding to test betty crocker triple chocolate fudge and betty crocker devil’s food cake box mixes. after baking and taste testing both, i settled on triple chocolate fudge because it had stronger chocolate notes and a weaker aftertaste. i cannot vouch for other box mixes. i imagine they will taste different!
• i tried swapping out water for milk in one batch, but believe water makes a better dupe. my hypothesis is that water brings out the chocolate flavor, and milk dampens it. the OG muffin is also very dark in color, whereas adding milk will lighten the muffin.
• the percent cocoa in your chocolate matters. i use ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate chips. i would not go for less cocoa than that, but you could also use dark chocolate chips.
• the quality of chocolate might matter too. ghiradelli has never let me down, and i noticed its the same price as nestle at my grocery store.
• i did not develop my own dupe ganache recipe. none of the olympic muffin dupe recipes come close, but i love ibakemistakes’ (i leave out the corn syrup). it’s fudgy and delightful. the easiest ones are just heavy cream and chocolate chips, and would likely work as well!
• the ganache can get messy. embrace it, it’s part of the process. i like to poke a hole in the center using a chopstick first to create a tunnel for the ganache to fill.
• a cute lil video if you prefer tiktok