I made Demi Lovato’s Favorite Birthday Cake. Here’s what I learned.

You could be forgiven for feeling a little skeptical about Demi Lovato publishing a cookbook. Why is the actor and musician telling us what to cook? Is it just a brand-building stunt?

On one of the first pages of “One Plate at a Time: Recipes for Finding Freedom with Food” (Flatiron Books, $34.99), Lovato answers this question: “My cooking journey started when I was almost 30, after spending five years in recovery from anorexia and bulimia.”

Lovato is a household name. For the Gen Z and Millennial generations, she’s a familiar figure from TV and the radio. We grew up watching her sing and dance alongside the Jonas Brothers in “Camp Rock” or act as the shy, frightened princess next to Selena Gomez in “Princess Protection Program.”

Lovato has been part of the media diet that shaped many people’s childhoods, including my own. She grew up in the limelight, her every move scrutinized by the fans growing up alongside her.

Her star power has been planted firmly in the performing arts discipline for most of her life, but in the introduction of “One Plate at a Time,” which was released today, she takes readers through her struggle with food and how learning to cook helped with her recovery.

Demi Lovato publishes her first cookbook, "One Plate at a Time: Recipes for Finding Freedom with Food" (Flatiron Books, $34.99) March 17. (Courtesy of Flatiron Books / Photos by Matt Armendariz)

In addition to recipes and guides on grocery shopping, stocking a kitchen and preserving leftovers, Lovato includes insights from experts like Dawn Delgado, an eating disorder and trauma recovery specialist; Kimberly Dennis, co-founder of SunCloud Health facility; and Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, authors of “Intuitive Eating.”

Lovato wrote that she chose to be open about her struggles with food because she knows how many others wrestle with similar issues.

“Disordered eating is incredibly common across all ages and genders, affecting as many as 1 in 6 people in the United States, yet it is one of the least frequently diagnosed psychological conditions,” she writes.

It’s a spectrum, she said, and although a person may not be diagnosed with an eating disorder, one’s relationship with food and their body can still be a lifelong struggle.

Alongside professional help, Lovato said that “learning how to feed myself has saved my life. I found freedom with food in the kitchen, of all places.”

The cookbook contains a collection of fairly simple, straightforward breakfast, snack, dinner, dessert and “essential” recipes. It’s clearly directed toward beginner cooks and people returning to the kitchen after a long absence, with passages that go over fundamentals like cooking eggs, roasting veggies and making rice.

While the recipes may not reinvent the wheel, they appear accessible and versatile, and most are easy to adapt for just one or two people.

“I want to help remove the stress that can bubble up when you get back in the kitchen after a prolonged absence and to offer reassurance to anyone cooking for the very first time, like I was,” she said in the book. “Consider these recipes my set list for a delicious new way of thinking about food and how it fits into your own life.”

I consider myself a beginner in the kitchen, and since I find baking to be the biggest challenge, I tried my hand at making Demi Lovato’s Favorite Birthday Cake.

“I knew my recovery had reached a really solid place when I started thinking about what kind of cake I wanted to make for my own birthday. Making something to please only myself felt like real progress …,” Lovato wrote in her introduction to the recipe.

In my early 20s, I struggled to come to terms with the fact that I wouldn’t always look the way I did in my late adolescence. Every new birthday meant I was growing further from that familiar person. Practically, it meant that sometimes jeans didn’t fit, tops I used to love didn’t look right anymore, and my relationship with food became a little more fraught.

The words we hear from our friends, from the media we consume and from our loved ones about how we should look and what we should eat — the frequent lamentations about weight loss and diets, both of which shift often based on cultural trends and whatever’s most marketable — always seemed so easy to spot and avoid.

But those words and signals seep into our minds and unconsciously slip out in conversation or in the privacy of our internal monologues.

Demi Lovato's Favorite Birthday Cake recipe calls for full-fat Greek yogurt thinned with water, which helps the cake earn its fluffy, moist texture. (Olivia Wakim/AJC)

During my afternoon making Lovato’s birthday cake, it occurred to me that baking offers a very clear lesson in change and transformation. There was a deep sense of satisfaction that came from folding the Greek yogurt into the batter and watching it become as fluffy as a cloud, triggering an intrusive desire to sink my fingers into the bowl. Witnessing the pale yellow butter turn to a white, whipped mound of buttercream when combined with powdered sugar and heavy cream was like a miracle before my eyes.

After overfilling the cake tins, batter splattered on the oven floor. Fortunately, the cakes survived. (Olivia Wakim/AJC)

Of course, there’s failure in baking. Exhibit A: I overfilled my cute, heart-shaped baking pans so the batter spilled all over the oven until I noticed a burning smell halfway through. Or Exhibit B: I pulled the cakes out of the oven and dumped the first one out too early. I was left with a sad, broken heart.

But practice makes perfect, and I’m confident that the next time I make this cake, I won’t overfill the pan or give in to my impatience.

Impatience led to a broken-hearted cake. (Olivia Wakim/AJC)

“When I was at the height of my struggles, I felt I didn’t deserve food,” Lovato writes. She interviewed several eating disorder specialists and nutritionists for the book, including Delgado, the founder of EMDR Collective, who points to how disordered eating can be “traced back to generational trauma and learned methods of coping with food.”

Lovato says her mother had an eating disorder, and working with Delgado helped her to move toward breaking the generational cycle of disordered eating.

“The recovery process is like tossing a pebble in the lake: it starts with you and then radiates out to create ripples outward that positively affect your family, your circles, your community,” Delgado said.

Lovato noted that she still struggles some days, but “learning how to cook — to truly nourish myself — has been one of the most healing things I’ve ever done.”

I shrugged off that first failed cake layer, crumbled it into a bowl and turned the scraps into cake pops. The second layer was a success. It was not particularly pretty, but the interior was delightfully fluffy and moist. Trimming the sides and adding some well-placed icing, sprinkles and strawberries made the cake look good as new.

In "One Plate at a Time: Recipes for Finding Freedom with Food" (Flatiron Books, $34.99), Demi Lovato shares her Favorite Birthday Cake recipe. (Courtesy of Flatiron Books / Photos by Matt Armendariz)

My Favorite Birthday Cake

In “One Plate at a Time” (Flatiron Books, $34.99), Lovato writes in the headnote of her cake recipe that this recipe was adapted from Dan Langan’s book “Bake Your Heart Out,” which she recommends for its clear instructions and hints.

She recommends adding rainbow sprinkles to the batter and on top of the cake to make it extra festive. It’s important to let the ingredients come up to room temperature before making the batter. For a two-layer cake (as pictured here), double the cake batter and bake it in two pans on the center rack of your oven. Switch the cakes from left to right about halfway through to make sure both layers bake evenly. Make some extra frosting (you won’t need a full double batch) to use as a filling or add a layer of Nutella or lemon curd between the layers.

Ingredients:

• 1⅓ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1¼ teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon fine salt
• ⅛ teaspoon baking soda
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2½ teaspoons vanilla extract
• ⅔ cup plain full-fat Greek yogurt, at room temperature
• 2 to 3 tablespoons confetti sprinkles, plus more for decorating the cake

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Spray a 9-inch round cake pan with nonstick cooking spray, then line the bottom of the pan with a circle of parchment paper (set the pan on a sheet of parchment paper, trace around the pan onto the paper, and then cut out the circle a little bit inside the line to get the right size).
2. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a mixing bowl. With an electric mixer, beat on low speed to combine, then continue to beat at low speed as you start to add the butter in small chunks. Let each bit of butter get incorporated before you add the next chunk. Continue to mix until all the butter is broken up and it looks like a sandy beach in the bowl.
3. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix on low speed until you have a sticky batter. Raise the speed to medium and beat for about 2 minutes, or until the color of the batter is considerably lighter and the batter looks light and fluffy. Don’t rush this step — it is what gives the cake its perfect texture. Use a silicone spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl once or twice, and don’t forget to scrape the beaters, too.
4. Mix 2 tablespoons water into the yogurt, then add the yogurt to the batter in 2 batches, beating on low speed until combined after each addition. Scrape down the sides one more time and beat for a few more seconds, until the batter is smooth and yummy looking. Add the sprinkles and mix on low until incorporated.
5. Scrape the batter into the baking pan, getting every last bit, then use the spatula to smooth the top. Tap the pan on the counter once or twice to pop any air bubbles.
6. Bake the cake on the center oven rack for about 40 minutes, or until the cake is pulling away from the sides of the pan a little bit, the top looks golden, and when you press the cake gently with your fingertip, it springs back without leaving a dent. Start checking after 35 minutes, because an overbaked cake is a dry cake!
7. When the cake is done, set it on a wire rack to cool completely in the pan, running a small sharp knife around the edges to release it after about 15 minutes. When cooled, you can either cover the entire pan and cake with plastic wrap and refrigerate it until you are ready to frost it, or unmold the cake, transfer it to a serving plate or cake stand, and frost away.

Serves 8.

Excerpted from “One Plate at a Time: Recipes for Finding Freedom with Food” by Demi Lovato. Copyright © 2026 by Demi Lovato. Reprinted with Permission from Flatiron Books. All rights reserved.

Buttercream Frosting

This makes enough to frost the top and sides of a 9-inch round cake. If you like the naked cake look, you can leave the sides bare and just have a thicker layer of frosting on top.

Ingredients:

• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• ¼ teaspoon fine salt
• 2½ cups powdered sugar
• 2 to 3 tablespoons heavy cream, or a bit more if needed