I haven't even really started this new work or project or whatever this "chef sharing about her experience with an eating disorder," thing is and I am already tired.
In preparation for this endeavor, I've been writing daily—treating it as a full time job—for nearly a year. It has been an immense privilege to be able to dive into this creative and therapeutic practice of articulating my feelings about who I am, where I've been, and the role that food has played in all of it. And it's also been emotionally exhausting.
When I started writing, I had this image of myself as pretty much recovered. I've shared about my eating disorder on social media, fundraised for NEDA (National Eating Disorder Association) walks, and become at least fifty percent more comfortable communicating to my fiancé what I actually want to eat for dinner and then eating it. I thought that I was sitting down to write about how I'd evolved and accrued wisdom over the years—from listening to my body when it wants salad and pushing myself to eat dessert when I hadn't planned for it and skipping exercise classes that I'd signed up for. But what's come out of my writing is far from snapshots of before and afters.
The emotions that surface as I write feel more visceral than they did when I lived through them. The pain that surfaces seems more relevant to me now, like I’m finally stepping into the hard and unpredictable truth of life. It's led me to long for the moments of perceived bliss that I used to feel stepping on the scale and seeing a smaller number than before or successfully lying to my friends so that I could skip meals and go straight to cocktails. Memories that I once associated with feelings of body dysmorphia are revealed to me as trauma that I hadn't noticed at the time or discomfort that I replaced with my only trusted coping skill. Sometimes the shame of spending so much of this one precious life fixated on my body and what food deserves to nurture it paralyzes me.
Where I thought it would be sometimes depressing, sometimes triggering, it's both and somehow also empowering. And I’m also nostalgic and full of yearning for a version of myself that I know I cannot be again. It's weird. So as I approach this project after years of working through my eating disorder and one year of writing about it, I'm trying my best to be graceful with myself. I was supposed to go to therapy last night, but I canceled. I’d spent the morning writing about how I used to eat rotten sweet potatoes because…well, we'll save that for another time, but the thought of spending my evening also unpacking feelings? No, thank you.
I had an image in my head of what my first post would be, a sneak peak into the confusing world that some people call recovery, but I could not get myself to finish it by my self-imposed deadline. Digging into the rotten sweet potatoes of my past didn’t feel good last night, so I blew it off. I made a cake instead.
Because I LOVE birthdays. I love giving gifts and having an excuse to celebrate the important people in my life, and today just happens to be my fiancé, my boyfriend of seven years, Christian’s, birthday. And yesterday was his friend’s birthday—my dream come true, TWO birthdays! So we made plans with our friends, and I offered to make cake.
I leaned on the very official pastry chef tactic of Googling recipes to come up with my version of a cookies & cream cake, and I feel pretty pleased with the results. So instead of throwing you into the deep-end of eating disorder trauma—if you're thinking, wait this intro feels kind of like a deep-end? Yeah, I get that—check out this cake! She’s cute, right? And she’s incredibly moist and slightly crunchy thanks to the cookie crumbs. Best of all, she’s politely sweet, not cloying so you can manage a whole hunking slice without feeling like you need to brush your teeth.
If you, too, are feeling like you just can’t handle your overthinking brain today, let me suggest making cake. This cake or another one, there’s a lot out there on the internet. Or if you’re still not in a place in your life where cake feels comforting, I’m sorry and I love you. Do whatever the hell you need to do take a brief break from your mean brain. Whatever it is, I support your procrastination.
Until next time—love to you <3
COOKIES & CREAM CAKE
Makes an 8 inch, 3-layer cake
FOR THE CAKE (minor adaptations from this cake)
4 oz chopped chocolate (60-70%)
1 1/2 cups coffee (hot!)
3 cups granulated sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/4 cups milk
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
FOR THE FROSTING (inspired by this frosting)
1 bag white chocolate chips
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup heavy cream
1 stick butter, room temperature, sliced into tablespoons
1/4 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 cup crushed *chocolate sandwich cookies*
1/2 cup crushed cookies for garnish, or not if you don't like how my cake looks
MAKE THE CAKE:
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Prep your cake pans with parchment paper & pan spray.
Put the chopped chocolate in a medium-sized bowl & pour the hot coffee over it, like you're making a ganache. Whisk until the chocolate melts and set aside (there will still probably be some graininess, don't stress!)
In a large mixing bowl, combine the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, and baking powder. If the cocoa is super stiff and crumbly, you'll want to sift it, but otherwise a good whisking will do.
In a pitcher or liquid measuring cup, combine the milk and vinegar. You just made buttermilk!
In a separate large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs on high speed until they expand in size and become pale yellow. There should be pretty big air bubbles, and they should thicken up slightly. With a hand mixer, this takes about 8 minutes, in a Kitchen-Aid, maybe less. With the mixer on medium, stream in the oil, vanilla, and the coffee/chocolate mixture.
Alternate adding the dry ingredients and the buttermilk, starting and ending with the dry. I like to do three big additions of dry and two of the buttermilk, but if you're working by hand, you might want to do four and three.
Divide the batter and bake the cakes for roughly 25-30 minutes, but this greatly depends on your oven. The surface of the cakes may look bubbly, this is normal! This is a very moist cake, which is what makes it amazing. Use a knife or toothpick to be sure about doneness, it should come out clean.
Cool cakes for five minutes in the pan then remove gently from the pans onto a wire rack. Cool at room temperature if you're not in a rush or pop them in the freezer for a bit if you are, like I usually am.
MAKE THE FROSTING:
In a medium-sized mixing bowl—preferably metal—combine the chocolate chips with the salt.
Heat the cream in a small saucepan over medium heat. Once it erupts and starts to threaten to boil over—you'll want to keep a close eye on this!—remove from the heat and pour over the chips. Whisk until the chocolate is entirely melted. You just made a ganache!
Set this bowl in a larger one filled about halfway with ice and a splash of water (in the biz, we call this an ice bath, but you probably know that). Whisk the ganache until it's just below room temperature, slightly cool to the touch. It should take maybe five minutes. Remove from the ice bath.
Now, either whisk vigorously or switch to a hand mixer and whip up the ganache. As you whip, gradually add the butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla. If it looks like it's starting to break and separate, don't fret! Put it back into the ice bath for a bit while you whip. It should start thicken and look almost like whipped cream, that's how you know you're done. Fold in the cookie bits.
Now ice the cake! If this sounds insurmountable, you've never done it and don't know where to begin, watch a Youtube video! That will explain the process FAR better than my words will. You can also make this like a naked cake if you want, that might be cute! If you'd like to garnish your cake like mine, cup some cookie crumbs in your right hand (or left if you're left-handed) and press them into the bottom fourth of the cake as you spin the cake on a pedestal or with your other hand. I recommend chilling the cake for at least a half hour to let the frosting set, making slicing a pretty, clean piece a tad easier. Enjoy!
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