The musicians played Patrick Curley's 19th century violin and the piano in the tiny living room and we delighted in singing traditional Irish and Scottish songs including My Canary has Circles Under His Eyes, recorded by Elsie Carlisle in 1931. Back in the Education Centre there was dancing for all, followed by morning tea for which Jenny Gall had baked an irresistible fruit cake.

Recently I visited the Watson home of David Game and Jenny Gall (known to readers of this paper for her music reviews). They have a persimmon tree, olive and fig trees, lemon and cumquat trees in tubs from which Jenny makes cumquat puddings baked in a steamer and marmalade. In raised beds there are tomatoes, carrots, radishes, spinach, oregano, redcurrants and artichokes. Her English grandmother ate peppery leaves of nasturtiums on thin slices of bread and butter, a memory passed on by her mother to Jenny who grows them too.

The garden highlight is a crabapple tree which David thinks was planted by the original owner in 1962. Tibetan prayer flags flutter from its branches. When they bought the house the garden was a dying remnant.

The family moved to the house in 2002. Jenny had been raised on the north coast of NSW and David came to Canberra as a teenager. Her doctorate, awarded at the ANU in 2008, is in women's traditional music in Australia while David's PhD from the ANU in 2009 is in English literature.

During December they have played at Tuggeranong Homestead and the ACT Cultural Facilities Board Christmas party at Lanyon where the Broadwood piano dates from the 1840s. In 2020 there will be recitals of the repertoire belonging to the ACT House Museums as part of the project "Listening to the Past" and funding will help restore the pianos in these houses.

Jenny says fruit cake has been linked to music for her since her university days in Armidale where she first discovered folk music. Their band rehearsed at a farmhouse where the owners kept goats for milk and chooks for eggs which they shared. Fruit cake was baked in a slow combustion stove and served with mugs of strong tea. Jenny says this reflects the rural way of life, generosity and sharing and using recipes from family and friends keeps memories alive.

In tomato season next year we will share Jenny's recipe for Dynamite Soup. Here is the Mugga-Mugga cake recipe which will be eaten at Christmas by David and Jenny's extended family.

1kg dried fruit (chopped figs, cranberries, prunes and morello cherries mixed with raisins, currants and peel)

4 tbsp butter

2-3 rounded tbsp proper unsweetened cocoa

3 rounded tbsp treacle

5 large eggs (Jenny's come from workmate Sigrid's chooks in Yass)

1.5 cups almond or hazelnut meal

2 cups plain flour (half wholemeal, half unbleached white)

1 tsp bicarb in a dessertspoon of hot water

liquid to cover the fruit (water, tea, orange juice or pomegranate juice which is stunning)

almonds or macadamias to decorate the top

Method

Line a deep, round tin 20cm minimum diameter with a circle on the bottom and a lining of brown paper, then baking paper inside that.

In a large saucepan place the fruit, cocoa, treacle and juice and bring to the boil. When bubbling, turn off the stove and let the fruit steep in the hot juice for 10 minutes at least.

When most of the heat has dissipated, add the dry ingredients (sifting the flour and cocoa together) and stir. If the mixture is looking very sloppy, reduce the quantity of eggs by one.

In a separate bowl, whip the eggs until very frothy (rotary beaters recommended). Fold the eggs through the mixture with a spatula, then add the bicarb in hot water and stir through. Put the mixture into the lined tin, add nuts in circles on top.

Bake in a low oven for three hours (or more). The longer you leave it the darker and richer it will become. The smell of caramelised fruit sugars will tell you when it is ready. Test with a skewer, when done, nothing wet should adhere to the skewer.

Stand the cake for 20 minutes to cool, then slowly drizzle with Irish whisky. Keep feeding the cake this way once every couple of days until you want to eat it - but it can be eaten two hours after baking. Store in a tin lined on the bottom with paper or muslin.