Birthright Chocolate Cake w/Sour Cream Frosting

Everyone, everyone EVERYONE with a birthday (which is EVERYONE) was born to eat this cake. I mean it.

And in a grand dream, I’m sitting in a kitchen in the clouds, dishing out slice after slice after slice to every single person out there…for reasons like they love cake, they don’t remember the last time they ate a piece of rich, dense chocolate cake, they had a birthday, they had a great day, a hard day, a fight with their boss, a fight with themselves. And we all sit around on clouds, sinking our forks into the deep, dark crumb, licking every last smudge of frosting off the tines of those forks and reclining with joy. There is only one thing that can ruin this dreamscape for me. It’s the sound, or the scent, or even the inkling of someone wondering if they had “earned their cake,” today.

 

I’m not the kind of person to have my blood boil, but man do those words make me upset.

 

Not at the individual speaking. But at our whack society and its messed up diet culture that has led us to believe that if we don’t burn enough calories, challenge ourselves amply or we don’t restrict what we eat enough to make space for a slice of cake we haven’t “earned it.” And we can’t have it. Because that would be “naughty.” And unhealthy – a term that is so overused and abused that we don’t actually know what it really means anymore. Damn it.

 

The conversation we have about “treating ourselves,” is so tricky. And riddled with pitfalls. Why? Why!

I don’t know the solution for how to turn the group-think around, but as an athlete I do know that in my 15 years of pushing my body to its limits, the more I lean into my cravings, listen to my body, and resist scolding it because I think it’s doing something “wrong,” or asking for something naughty, the more it rewards me with strong performances, strong well-being, a reliable weight and body shape, and a confident sense of self.

 

As a health practitioner, who has read the journals, read the case studies and seen the macros, micros and energetics in action, I know this to be true:

 

It is our birthright to eat cake. Every. Single. Human. We don’t need to do anything, achieve anything, overcome anything, endure anything. And while we DO need to have birthdays, so we can have birthrights to eating cake, we don’t need to wait until our birthday to actually enjoy a slice. Or a few slices.

 

It’s just the same as needing to “earn a beer,” or earn a plate of pasta, to earn a burger or a big fat ice cream cone. Food is not a reward. It is FUEL. And the bites we take of whatever joyful thing we eat BECOME OUR CELLS. They become our bodies! So then our bodies have the ability to act on all those goals, emotions, dreams, hopes and aspirations that hypothetically would EARN us the cake. But guess what – without the cake, WE DON’T GET THERE.

 

This is just one of the cakes that I’ve baked for myself during my birthday month celebration. (Baking many cakes to eat and share is one of the most glorious parts about this whole month-long party thing. One day of celebrating only leaves space for a little bit of cake but this way, oh MAN do I get my cake and eat it too!) Unlike any other cake I’ve ever baked, you mix all of the ingredients up in a pan (instead of with a mixer,) which makes it easy peasy (also meaning that you don’t even have to EARN a culinary degree to know how to make it properly!)

It’s rich, dense, packed with all of the good ingredients that I hope you’ve grown to trust me to incorporate at each and every turn. There’s a lot of goodness baked in here, and below I tell you why I hope you reconsider your thoughts and word choice the next time you tell yourself, or someone else, that you haven’t earned a slice.

 

This is the cake that you were born to eat.

Bake yourself a birthright cake

Now, as I’m typing this little sweet cake rant, I realize that I wouldn’t go so far as to say that EVERY cake is a birthright cake. There are quite a few cakes out there, made with sub-par or even non-food ingredients that actually blaspheme your birthright to eat cake and turn it into a kind of invisible disservice to your being. Hydrogenated oils, bleached and refined sugars and flours, artificial colors and flavors, you know, that stuff. Now I’m not going to say that they don’t taste good. (Hint: they’re engineered to!) But I am going to say that they aren’t doing you any favors, buying you any freedom or joy.

 

But a cake baked with the best ingredients you can find, with your own hands or the hands of someone you love, THAT is a birthright. That is one of life’s great pleasures and something that we all deserve, even if we don’t ever complete a marathon, spend all day exercising, and sit in on a 12-hour Zoom fest instead.

Peace of cake

As you have likely come to expect of me, I was highly selective in the way that I built this recipe – to include ingredients I knew would sprinkle the day with joy and nourish my body at the same time. Here’s what I used, and why, and I hope that it helps you make peace with a sweet slice of cake all your own:

• Coconut sugar: coconut sugar is literally the dehydrated sap from coconut trees. I use it here because I love the flavor, because it’s packed with iron, zinc, potassium and calcium, contains soluble fiber that fuels a healthy microbiome AND because it’s lower on the glycemic index than evaporated cane juice. Coconut sugar has a glycemic index of 34, while evaporated cane juice has an index of 65, meaning that foods that use coconut sugar are less sweet and better maintain balanced blood sugar levels.
• Unsweetened chocolate: before we add a whole bunch of cream or sugar to chocolate, it’s chock full of antioxidants, energetic compounds that help our bodies to reduce inflammation, balance cholesterol and enhance brain function. The bitter flavor in unsweetened chocolate (or cacao,) tonify our systems, deliver antioxidants and soothe our bodies and minds.
• Heirloom grain flour: you may know already that I love gluten and would marry it if I wasn’t already engaged. But I love the gluten from heirloom grain flours even more BECAUSE they contain all of the soluble fiber, minerals and nutrients that make grain (and specifically, gluten) easier to digest. I get my whole grain flours from Dry Storage here in Boulder, where they’re sourced regionally and milled locally. It’s really special stuff. I highly encourage you to hunt down a great source of local, heirloom grain flour where you live too. AND, if you can consume or digest gluten, scroll down for my favorite GF flour recipe.
• A2 cow’s milk dairy: I use cow’s milk in this recipe, not an alternative “mylk.” I do so because cow’s milk is a supremely excellent source of protein, and when it’s A2 milk, it’s quite easy to digest. Casein accounts for about 80% of the protein in milk, A1 and A2 are two different varients of casein, called beta-casein. Historically speaking, most cows produced milk that contained A2 beta-casein. But somewhere along the way as industrialized dairy rose, the beta-casein mutated into A1. When A1 protein is digested in the small intestine, it produces a peptide called beta-casomorphin-7 (BCM-7). The intestines absorb BCM-7, and it then passes into the blood. Doctors have linked BCM-7 to stomach discomfort and symptoms similar to those experienced by people with lactose intolerance. The structure of A2 protein is more comparable to human breast milk, as well as milk from goats, sheep, and buffalo. And, in fact, studies have shown that many of the symptoms of lactose intolerance are negligible when A2 milk is consumed over A1. This is a great article on drinking the right milk (not necessarily oat or almond either!) 
• Pasture-raised eggs: Eggs that come from chickens who spend their time roaming around the farm, grazing in the yard, and NOT eating conventional chicken feed contain twice as much omega-3 fat, three times more vitamin D, four times more vitamin E, and seven times more beta-carotene than eggs from hens raised on traditional feed. I buy these eggs from the farmer down the road who sells them for $4 a dozen because he has more than he knows what to do with. You may have a farmer like this in your ‘hood. And, if not, you can pick from a variety of pasture raised eggs at the grocery store!

So what I’m telling you is that this just might be the most decadent, easy to digest, nutritious, delicious, earth-conscious and body-conscious cake you’ve ever tasted. I told you – we were born to eat this cake!