Beefcake

Healthy team camaraderie is the best way to survive residency. Open lines of communication are vital in patient care, and equally vital to build morale, to keep people coming to work and giving one hundred percent. The psychiatry hospital team I’ve been on this month has got it going on—they even have a mascot—they call themselves Team Beefcake. And yes, they all go to the gym and pump iron at the end of long shifts. As the only lady, and a scraggly non-beefy lady at that, when I joined these guys at the beginning of July, one asked me, “Are you a beefcake?” I stated the obvious, “Well, I do yoga and run long distances. I suppose if I have any beef to claim, I’d say I’m a lean beef noodle.” I did not tell him that the last time I tried to bench press, I struggled to keep the unweighted bar from falling on my forehead. I became a marginal member of the team, until I proved my commitment to Team Beefcake with this culinary masterpiece:

beef·cake  [beef-keyk]

noun

1. Somebody really ripped and muscular. Usually male. Beefcakes are usually good-looking and enjoy displaying their muscles.

2. A large and muscular man who enjoys hockey, football, and other sports. He also enjoys eating. The typical beefcake is not the sharpest tool in the shed, in fact he is rather dumb.

3. Someone who really enjoys cake and is also beefy.

4. [new entry] A chocolate and strawberry cake made to look like a slab of beef. May be used as compensation for lack of muscles for those seeking to gain acceptance among true beefcakes.

Here is the secret to making a beefcake of your own. Bake a strawberry cake (I used a Betty Crocker box mix, because this project was yet another late-night epiphany, and the thought of beating egg whites at 2am seemed like overkill) in an 11×16 glass baking dish. Do reps with the baking dish if you think it will improve your definition. Butter the edges of the dish, and your biceps if you have some left over. Allow the baked cake to cool; I even put cakes briefly in the freezer to expedite the cooling process. Cover a baking sheet with tin foil so that it will appear the meat slab is fresh off the grill. Transfer the cake onto the foil as intact as possible. Cut the edges away to create a steak shape. Get chocolate frosting and cover the top and sides completely. Melt 2 oz of white baking chocolate and carefully paint on a T-bone at the larger end of the cake. Then melt 2 oz of bittersweet chocolate in the microwave and with a spatula, and drizzle the liquid dark bittersweet chocolate into parallel lines across the cake, so it looks nice and charred. Bring to the beloved beefcakes in your life and cut a medium rare slice for each.