The most popular pastry in the Olympic Village in Paris isn’t a croissant, a chocolate cake or any other classic French pastry — it’s a double chocolate muffin that went viral on TikTok.
To find out what makes the treats so irresistible, PEOPLE turned to Sodexo Live!. The company is responsible for feeding the 15,000 athletes who live in the village.
A company representative tells PEOPLE that the treats — popularized by Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen — are 130g “Maxi” muffins “presented in a tulip cup.”
“It is filled and covered with dark chocolate, with pieces of dark chocolate and milk chocolate. This cookie is served daily in the main athlete restaurant and at six takeout locations within the Village,” the representative continued.
And the story isn’t just happening online — the chocolate muffins are actually flying off the shelves at the Village, according to Sodexo Live!.
A viral chocolate muffin from the Olympic village.
Henrik Christiansen/Tiktok
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“This dessert is very popular, because there are about 2,000 chocolate muffins [are] consumed every day in the Sports Village. In total, Sodexo Live! plans to serve 100,000 muffins throughout the Sports Village during [the] Olympic and Paralympic Games,” says the company, but they did not want to reveal the recipe.
Thanks to Christiansen, the self-proclaimed “Olympic Village Muffin Man” and three-time Olympic swimmer, the treats have been the subject of dozens of videos on social media, some of which have received more than two million likes. “I literally can’t stop,” Christiansen said in the comments of one of his videos.
Other Olympians, including gymnast Aleah Finnegan, shared clips of themselves reacting to the viral treats. The morning after winning the bronze medal, several members of the US men’s gymnastics team had their say.
“I had my first one this morning … oh my god, they’re really good,” said Brody Malone, who was interviewed by PEOPLE along with teammates Stephen Nedoroscik and Asher Hong. “They are so gooey.”
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“Olympic Muffin Man”, Henrik Christiansen.
Henrik Christiansen/TikTok
Sodexo live! also tells PEOPLE about the wide variety of desserts available to athletes, including “white foods, compotes, fresh fruit, as well as a variety of popular cakes such as flan parisien, tarte au citron, financiers, carrot cakes and macadamia cookies.”
Namely, in the last few days, a new dessert has appeared that can compete with muffins. Jon Joentvedt, a 21-year-old swimmer on the Norwegian team, shared a series of TikToks touting a new dessert available at the Village: cookies.
On July 30, Christiansen’s teammate uploaded a video of himself trying the cookie, which appears to contain both milk chocolate and white chocolate chips. Joentvedt captioned the snap, “Yo better.”
Norwegian athletes got into a funny fight trying to catch each other for being “traitors” and eating their rival’s favorite sweets.
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Jon Joentvedt’s favorite cookie from the Olympic Village.
MaestaJon/Tiktok
On July 30, Joentvedt filmed Christiansen eating a cookie and captioned the clip, “I guess the Olympic Muffin Man is a traitor after all.”
On August 1, Christiansen fired back by posting a TikTok of Joentvedt eating a chocolate chip cookie in the dining room. “My mortal enemy Cookie Man is caught short of muffins,” he captioned the video. “If he chooses to expose me, then I will expose him,” Christiansen continued in the caption.
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Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education