In mid 1986 the Book Club were asked by Arts Access if they would consider running a one off country workshop for writer in residence, Olga Masters. The day was a great success with visitors from Williams and Kojonup. Olga Masters was a delightful, unaffected woman who had achieved success late in life. It was with a sense of shock and loss that we learnt of her sudden death very shortly after she had made the flooring charming contribution to our book.
Olga Masters writes:
In my kitchen I have a drawer for fruit cakes. They are brown all over, studded with almonds on top, dent tenderly to the touch and smell of a wine cellar.
When visitors come, they are served slices and their eyes above their bulging cheeks ask why? Is it Christmas in July?
If they can’t stay long enough to eat, that have a cake pressed into their astonished hands. If they are dieting, they surely will have a use for it within the next year or so for a christening or birthday or similar event. If they can get through it in a week, please call again for another.
If this sounds like a fairy (cake) tale, no. It is a pointer to failure.
When plots refuse to unfurl, when words refuse to say it subtly but clearly, when soundless wooden images fail to take on flesh and blood, this writer bakes a fruit cake.
The visitors almost without fail are kind enough to praise the cake they eat or receive and ask as an afterthought, how I am getting along with my new book.
I don’t have to answer. Just open the drawer and show them.
Olga’s Fruit Cake
Anyway, here’s what I do. Line a cake pan with several layers of brown paper, greasing the inner one. Have ready six cups of finely cut tried fruit, more raisins than anything else. Ginger, gates, figs, apricots go in with the peel. chopped almonds, currants, sultanas and of course the raisins. A generous cup of claret is flung over the fruit which is kept in a lidded icecream container. A 250 g pack of butter is creamed with one and a half cups of brown sugar until light and smooth. Added to that is one tablespoon of golden syrup and the same in marmalade, a splash of vanilla and some freshly grated orange and lemon rind. Beat in five large eggs. Have ready in a basin two cups of plain flour, half a cup of self raising flour, half teaspoon of mixed spice and the same of ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon. Add half this to the butter mixture, blend without heavy beating, then add half the fruit, the remainder of the flour and lastly th fruit. turn into tin, smooth out, place whole almonds in a pattern on top and bake in a slow oven for three and a half to four hours.