Moni Schiller knows fruitcake is the most reviled food product known to man.
But, she also knows fruitcake is inherently hilarious because that hatred has made it the butt of innumerable jokes.
That dichotomy (and the fact she personally likes fruitcake) prompted the Kelowna woman to run a home-based fruitcake baking business from 2004-16, start a blog about it in 2006, an associated newsletter in 2009, a first book in 2024 and the latest book this year.
Of course, the most recent installment is titled 'Nuttier than a Fruitcake' — utilizing the slur for a strange or crazy person and the name of the fruitcake-making business.
Photo credits: Steve MacNaull/NowMedia GroupMoni Schiller with her book 'Nuttier than a Fruitcake' and the fruitcake that inspired it all.
Also, of course, it's Schiller who's the fruitcake in all this.
"It's a complete vanity project," said Schiller with a laugh.
"I finally have an outlet for all the manure I've been putting out to the world."
All this in time for Christmas and to tee up with the season for seemingly giving and receiving fruitcake as the cherished, traditional gift that no one actually likes to eat.
Schiller had 'Nuttier than a Fruitcake: A Memoir of Batter, Blunders & Becoming' self-published through Amazon.ca and it's now available on the site for $14.99 for the 211-page book, $15.99 for the audio book (which she narrates) and $9.99 for the e-book.
It was put forward for consideration in the memoir category of the Canadian Book Club Awards, but didn't make the finalists list.
"I'm brashly hopeful it will sell 500 copies," said Schiller with another chuckle.
"One of the early reviewers said they couldn't put it down. Who knew I would write a thriller. I thought it was supposed to be humour."
And, it is funny.
"It's for people who appreciate a laugh or like coming to their senses," said Schiller.
The 'coming to their senses' quip refers to her discouraging anyone from their fantasy of opening a home-based food business.
"I did it for 12 years, pumped out maybe 20,000 fruitcases and at best probably only broke even," she commiserates.
"So, it's more of a not-what-to-do book than a how-to book."
Yet, when Schiller started it all, she aspired to be the fruitcake queen, to ascend from obscurity to fame.
It was her calling.
She was a media darling for daring to start a fruitcake business, she sold fruitcakes online for mail order all over the place and the fruitcakes were sold in local stores like Quality Greens, IGA and Sunshine Market.
"And, you've gotta hand it to me — I rode it to the point where I got two books out of it," she said with yet another laugh.
It was the instructor of the UBCO creative writing course that Schiller took 15 years ago who encouraged her to write about her experiences, make it funny and consider a self-published book.
The first book was 2024's 'OK I'll Bite', another humourous romp of excerpts from 20 years of her 'Nuttier than a Fruitcake' newsletters along with 10 of her favourite recipes, including the one for the Totally Decadent Fruitcake.
Disappointingly, the fruitcake recipe isn't in 'Nuttier than a Fruitcake'.
Schiller calls it her devious plan to get you to buy both books.
She reveals that even people who despise fruitcake love her Totally Decadent Fruitcake.
Schiller's version forgos the petrified fruit peels and molasses that most people yuck at in regular fruitcake and instead uses red and green glace cherries and pineapple, oodles of milk and dark chocolate chunks (something that usually isn't in traditional fruitcake) and douses it liberally in brandy.
"The chocolate definitely puts it over the edge," she declared.
"That and the roasted pecans."
At this point, Schiller gives a shout out to Marion Berry, the accountant who kept the books of Rucastle & Schiller, the job search and career counselling firm Schiller ran with Susan Rucastle from 1992 to 2007.
Berry made fruitcakes and gave them to the two career counsellors as Christmas gifts.
Rather than roll her eyes, Schiller loved the fruitcake and with Berry's blessing adapted the recipe (more chocolate, more brandy) to launch Nuttier than a Fruitcake.
Schiller still makes fruitcake, not commercially, but for herself and her 101-year-old mom, who "wolfs it down," according to Schiller.
By the way, some of those jokes about fruitcake are:
– Tonight Show host Johnny Carson famously declared fruitcake the worst Christmas gift of all time.
"There is only one fruitcake in the entire world and people keep giving it to each other."
Carson also did a gag on his show in which a forklift delivers a fruitcake because it is so heavy and when he puts it on desk the desk splinters into a thousand pieces.
– If you don't like the fruitcake you received for Christmas, use it as a doorstop.
– Why does fruitcake make the perfect gift? Because the postal service hasn't found a way to damage it.
– A town in Colorado has an annual 'Fruitcake Toss' for people to get rid of the unwanted fruitcakes they were given as Christmas gifts.
Check out Amazon to order the book and https://monischiller.com/
