Check out that pic up above. Those are the famous Jake Fromm fruit cookies. Pretty sure that will sack everyone’s calorie count for today.
Those delicacies were called “fruit cookies” by Georgia All-American candidate Andrew Thomas. With all due respect to Mr. Thomas, it is sort of like calling Jake Fromm a “game manager” at quarterback.
Fromm’s grandmother is establishing a mini-tradition with the program. She sends up a batch of those every now and then for the boys to eat.
“I love doing it,” Julianne Haskins said.
There was a batch of about six or seven dozen on the way to Athens this afternoon. But that “fruit cookies” line from last week got the wheels turning.
Weight room expansion? Future scheduling news breaks? Scholarship maximums for the 2020 class? What about that wayward 5-star target? How long is that prototype right tackle going to be out?
Those elements had to hold. Another investigation had to commence. When it did, it turns out those little dollops of heaven are not actually known as fruit cookies.
These are actually knowns “fruit pizzas” and they sound amazing.
Haskins calls them “fruit pizzas.” That is what they shall be referred to from now on around these parts.
How did they become a thing at Georgia? Well, one of Fromm’s former teammates made that happen.
They sound exactly like something only a “grandmomma” can bake.
The Intel on the Fromm’s Fruit Pizzas
Sophomore center Trey Hill also played with Fromm at Houston County. He remembered her “fruit pizzas” from their high school days. When they were at Georgia last fall, he asked Fromm about them.
“They are not real big anyway,” Haskins said. “Just a couple of big bites of it. I started making them when Jake was in his junior or senior in high school. Lee (his mother) was forever having company and I would take them over there. For some reason, Trey Hill told Jake one day at football practice ‘why isn’t Grandma doing some more cookies’ and so I fixed a bunch and sent it up there with them.”
They satisfied a team of hungry Bears back then. It appears they work for Bulldogs, too.
Hill proves the eternal point that offensive linemen never forget a good after-practice treat.
“When is Grandmomma doing some more cookies?” Hill asked Fromm last season.
It touched Haskins.
“I told Lee you don’t know what a blessing that is,” Haskins said. “What a blessing that was for Trey to even remember them. Grandmommas just don’t expect other kids to remember those kinds of things. But it just blessed my heart to know he remembered me doing a bunch of them when they were still in high school.”
“So I fixed a bunch of them last year and I fixed a bunch more and sent them back up there today.”
That’s the first batch for this year. Fromm’s father and his uncle were set to deliver them today.
“When I heard that Andrew Thomas I think gave the interview that they enjoyed them so much I hadn’t thought that much about it,” she said. “I thought ‘my gosh I am going to have to send some up there this week’ because I didn’t know they enjoyed them so much.”
It only takes her a couple of hours, if that. She bakes the cookies in the morning. Her crust is just those simple pre-cut Pillsbury sugar cookies from the store. She just bakes them.
That fancy part comes in the fresh fruit for the pizza topping. It is a blend of everything from strawberries to kiwi to blueberries to grapes to bananas.
There is a little filling on the inside. That is just cream cheese, sugar with just a little play action of vanilla.
“It probably doesn’t take more than an hour to put the fruit on them and to put the filling on it,” she said.
When “grandmomma” wants to do more, she adds some raspberries to the mix. That’s even though she doesn’t like her cookies to get too juicy.
“It is basically the old-timey fruit pizza that we used to eat a long time ago,” she said. “But when I started doing them for the kids it was so much easier for them to pick them up and eat them and bite them in a cookie form. There was no need to go through the trouble of slicing them up like the way they used to be.”
When she makes them for family gatherings, they are consumed before everyone sits down for supper.
“She is the rock for our families,” Lee Fromm said. “She is the most unselfish person.”
RELATED: The secret to UGA’s pass protection? Could it be a 5-star cookie?
Food review: Fromm’s Fruit Pizzas
Do the delicacies get a 5-star rating? It sure sounded that way last week when the boys introduced them to DawgNation.
Solomon Kindley brought them up last week. That came when he was asked if Fromm does anything to reward his line for not giving up any sacks.
“Fruit cookies, those cookies his grandma makes,” the All-American candidate said.
“We look forward to those fruit cookies. It’s some type of dough, with some type of icing, and it has fruit on top of them. It’s the best cookie ever.”
Thomas gobbles them up quickly.
“They don’t last 5 minutes, they’re gone quickly — like vultures running to get some food,” Thomas said. “It’s like a slab of a cookie, then icing and then fruit.”
Kindley said Hill broke the news on what they had been missing.
“Trey told me his grandma would cater for them, and she would bring fruit cookies, and he said you got to try them,” Kindley said. “So then Jake came up with, ‘don’t give up any sacks, if [I] don’t get any hits caused by the offensive line, I’ll bring y’all fruit cookies.'”
“One day I got one, and I was like, ‘tell grandma I need more, I need more fruit cookies.”
Georgia actually gave up a sack last weekend. It is doubtful anyone will bring up that technicality. Haskins said she is just happy to do them.
To her, she just doing the same things she’s done for the boys on her grandson’s football team. It is just the No. 3 team in the nation this week.
“It is just the grandmomma in me,” Haskins said. “That you just love to do things for not only your grandkids but also for all of their friends. Just to see all of them enjoy it. I am tickled to death to do it for them.”
It sure sounds like it.
“My mom is just awesome,” Lee Fromm said. “She loves it as much as they love eating them.”