If at first you don't succeed ...

I had a bit of a hiatus from blogging while we headed up to Cairns for a little bit of scuba diving and white water rafting. It really is a tough life living here in Australia. We took the Friday and Monday off work and made a long weekend of it.

The weekend was all about activity. We were up at the crack of dawn to get the most out of every day and we didn’t come home until the sun had set. I love Cairns but I don’t think it would ever be described as the culinary capital of Australia. There are a lot of cheap eat restaurants along the Esplanade which seem to cater for back packers but we did notice one Italian Restaurant that had a queue outside it called Villa Romana. There was an extensive menu and since I was shattered from a day of scuba diving I decided to leave my choices in the lap of our friendly waiter. That turned out to be a very wise move on my part.

To start we had the juiciest oysters in a lemon vodka dressing. They were light and oh so tasty. The main course was a feast of Morton Bay Bugs in a rich creamy chilli sauce. I was tempted to go for the chilli mud crabs but, to be honest, the ease at which you can get at the meat in bugs is a big draw point for me. I love crab but it drives me mad trying to pick out all the little fiddley bits of meat. We ended the meal with a rich double mud cake and a full bodied red wine. Perfection! I was kicking myself that I didn’t have my camera with me.

We drove through Innisfail on the way to the Tully River to do some White Water rafting. Innisfail is the banana capital of the world (according to our guide) and was devastated by Cyclone Larry three months ago. Ever since Larry hit the price of bananas has gone ballistic. Well, everyone will be glad to hear that new banana trees have been planted for as far as the eye can see and they are coming along nicely. Apparently all the trees are clones of the one tree. This titbit of information was again offered by our guide. Later in the day we found our guide to be an exceptionally funny kiwi guy who had a penchant for stretching the truth so I’m not 100% sure if I believe him.

When last I posted I had a bit of a dismal cake to display. Never one to be beaten, I got out the cook books and went in search of another clafouti recipe. I found one in Great Casual Food that didn’t have any butter in it. Since I have a feeling that the butter might have been my downfall in the last recipe I thought this one would be a safe bet - and how right I was. This cake turned out much better. The recipe was for plum clafouti but since I couldn’t get my hands on plums I went for a mix of cranberries and blueberries. The clafouti turned out much fluffier and rose much better than the last attempt. The photo of the cake was taken a while after it was made and I think the trick might be to eat the cake very soon after it comes out of the oven. I’m still not 100% happy with the cake but this is a big improvement on the last attempt.

Plum clafouti

1 ½ cups (375ml) low-fat custard
¼ cup (35g) self-raising flour
1 egg yolk
2 egg whites
825g can whole plums, drained, halved, and seeded
2 teaspoons icing sugar mixture

1 Preheat oven to 180C.
2 Combine custard, flour and egg yolk in medium bowl.
3 Beat egg whites in small bowl of electric mixer on highest speed until soft peaks form; fold gently into custard mixture. Pour into 24cm-round ovenproof pie dish.
4 Pat plums dry with absorbent paper; arrange plums, cut-side down, over custard. Place pie dish on oven tray.
5 Bake in moderate oven, uncovered, about 40 minutes or until firm.
6 Just before serving dust with sifted icing sugar. Other fruit can be substituted for the plums.