Treats: Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

I told Mr. Fritz that I'd made him some incredible cookies to take in his lunch this week and he took one look at them and said, "Merry Christmas, Mr. Fritz!" Then he took this glamour shot of them to show off their irresistibility:


The recipe is from the October issue of Everyday Food and it is the recipe that finally put this issue over the top for me as an all-time favorite. It's turned out so many great meals, I think it alone was worth the entire year's subscription price...

In any case, as I've noted many times, I am NOT a baker. I'm incredibly bad a baking. But these cookies. Oh my word. They are so delicious I almost don't know what to say. The magazine called them "Crave worthy" and that is no understatement. In fact, I gave one to Ms. Hays today as a parting gift when she stopped by to see me and when she tried the cookie a few hours later, liked it enough to send me the following text message: "I just had a bite of your cookie. Holy crap that's a good cookie!" See what I mean? Definitely worthy of Mr. Fritz's glamour shot treatment. And definitely worthy of your time if you decide to make them. I know I'll definitely turn out another batch before too long.

My one note/tip: the recipe calls for 8 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate, chopped. I hate chopping chocolate, so I just used my big heavy meat tenderizer and banged on the two 4-ounce chocolate bars while they were still in their wrappers. Worked like a charm!

Holiday Treat: Pilgrim Hats and Turkeys

The Eldest Miss Bowers is back for her second annual Thanksgiving blog post. Tonight, she's going to write about the fun Rice Krispie treat pilgrim hats and turkeys that she made with her mom, Mrs. Bowers, and her littlest sister, The Youngest Miss Bowers. Eldest Miss Bowers, take it away!


"To follow up on last year's Reeses Peanut Butter Cup Pilgrim Hats, we decided to move into Rice Krispie Treat Pilgrim Hats and Turkeys, too. We made the Pilgrim Hats first. My mom made chocolate rice krispie treats and we cut them into pilgrim hat shapes. Then we added a frosting buckle and hat band. That was pretty much it. It was pretty easy!


"The Turkeys were a big project. They took awhile, but they were fun. We used regular Rice Krispie treats and cut them into circles. Then we used chocolate frosting and put it near the top edge of each circle. Next we added as many candy corns as we needed, and put them upside down, side by side on top of the frosting, to form the feathers. Finally, we added a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup on top of each one. And we made frosting eyes with white and then black frosting on top of each peanut butter cup and we added a beak made out of frosting. That's it!

"One of the things I'm thankful for is getting to bake with my family. Happy Thanksgiving!"

Thank you Eldest Miss Bowers!!

Love is...

...when a Wolverine makes chocolate and peanut butter buckeyes with which to surprise her Buckeye husband the night before the Big Game.


This was my first time making buckeyes. (And to be honest, they look really sad compared to the gorgeous ones The Original Mrs. Fritz regularly turns out. Sigh.) I would like to think that I may have gone momentarily insane, causing me to set aside the Maize and Blue running through my veins in order to be able to make these symbolically loaded confections. But the truth is, I just love Mr. Fritz. And I know these will make him ridiculously happy. And that's enough of a reason for me to do just about anything.

That being said... Go Blue!

Treats: The Original Mrs. Glade's Easy Chocolate Cake

Mr. Fritz likes to eat something sweet in the morning. For the first year of our marriage, that took the form of two doughnuts with a banana chaser. But he's gotten a little tired of the doughnuts, so I've begun to explore other sweet treat options, including homemade bundt cakes.

The one I made this week is pretty incredible and it is ridiculously easy. The recipe came from Mrs. Glade, who got it from her mother-in-law, The Original Mrs. Glade. It's a chocolately delight and it starts with a cake mix, reducing the chance for error by people like me who regularly fail in their baking endeavors. If you are looking for a quick, wonderful cake, I can't recommend this one highly enough!

The Original Mrs. Glade’s Easy Chocolate Cake

1 box Devil’s Food Cake Mix

4 eggs

1 instant chocolate pudding packet

½ cup water

8 oz. sour cream

¼ cup vegetable oil

¼ cup strong coffee

Package of Chocolate Chips

Mix all ingredients together and stir until well incorporated. Pour into greased bundt pan. Bake at 350 for 50 minutes. Allow to cool in the pan before turning it over onto a rack. Enjoy!

Holiday Treat: Chocolatey Pilgrim Hats

For tonight's special Thanksgiving edition of Feeding Mr. Fritz, my niece, Miss Bowers, is taking over the keyboard. She and her family made a very fun and festive holiday treat to bring to The Original Mr. and Mrs. Fritz's house for Thanksgiving: pilgrim hats made out of edible goodies. Here's Miss Bowers, 7, with more:

"It's really easy! All you have to do is take a Fudge Stripe Cookie and then you put chocolate frosting around the hole in the center and then you take a Reeses' Peanut Butter Cup and put it onto the frosting upside down. Then, you have to take a candy corn and cut off the white part on the top and you push it into the Reese's Cup so that it looks like a buckle. And that's pretty much all you have to do. It's very chocolatey and very peanut butterish.


"If you want to make a lot, my family and I did an assembly line, so I would do the frosting and my sister would put on the Reese's Cup and my other sister would have the candy corn, so it went pretty fast. If you only want a few and you don't have an assembly line, it doesn't take very long either. I would recommend that anyone try making this Thanksgiving treat!"

Thanks, Miss Bowers!