Let’s RISE together: Celebrating the Sydney Gay + Lesbian Mardi Gras

We love to celebrate with food, to mark a moment with something memorable and delicious.

The 19th Feb is the start of the 42nd annual Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival. The SGLMG Parade is Australia’s beloved celebration of pride, protest, passion and diversity. This year it will be held (albeit a little differently) at the Sydney Cricket Ground on 6th March. The SGLMG has always had a strong focus on celebration while maintaining a commitment to social justice for LGBTQI+ communities. And we love that this year’s theme is RISE.

“This past year has undoubtedly been one of unprecedented challenge and hardship….
It’s a new dawn.
Let’s lift the bar and watch our spirits rise again.
In 2021, we RISE…
‘RISE’ is a call to action – now is the time to ascend with love, compassion, respect and understanding.”

To celebrate and to raise awareness of this year’s theme ‘RISE’, we can think of nothing better than baking a glorious, high and super delicious chocolate chiffon cake.

This recipe appeared in our very first book from the kitchen of our friend Lyndi Adler (of ‘plumb’ cake fame). The chiffon cake has become an iconic part of the Monday Morning repertoire (we have 7!), from our most cherished Custard Chiffon Cake (alongside a wonderful story how Merelyn convinced her mother to part with the recipe) to our How-to-Chiffon Guide in our latest book, Now for Something Sweet. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful Mardi Gras celebration!!

Chocolate Chiffon Cake

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Course Sweet Things

Cuisine European

Ingredients

  

• 260 g self-raising flour 1¾ cups
• 135 g drinking chocolate (sweetened) 1 cup
• 6 eggs separated
• 345 g caster sugar 1 ½ cups
• 250 ml oil 1 cup
• 250 ml hot tap water 1 cup

Instructions

 

• Preheat the oven to 180°C. You will need an angel cake (chiffon) tin. Do not grease it.
• Sift together the flour and drinking chocolate and set aside.
• Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form, then slowly add half of the sugar. Continue whisking until stiff peaks form, then set aside.
• Beat the egg yolks with the remaining sugar until pale and very fluffy. Slowly add the oil and continue to beat. Fold in the flour mixture, alternating with the hot water, and beat together for a few minutes.
• Gently fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture until just combined. Pour into the cake tin and bake for 1 hour.
• After removing the cake from the oven, immediately invert it to cool by balancing the middle funnel onto a bottle neck. It is important for the cake to be inverted and suspended upside down until it is cool to stop it from collapsing. When cool, run a knife around the outside of the cake and around the funnel.
• Lift the base out of the tin, then use the knife to ease the cake off the base