Julie Des Jardin
When it’s my turn to bring the “sweets” for our home league matches, my go-to is a fruit pizza. This Fruit Pizza recipe is easy to make, incredibly delicious, and it’s sure to impress! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “But it’s so beautiful… I don’t want to cut into it!”
Ladies… just cut into it! Your mouth will thank you. It also has a sweet carb kick to help power you through your match, too.
Anyhoo… if you’ve never had fruit pizza, it’s probably not what you think. There’s a chewy sugar cookie base (the “crust”) that’s covered with a thick layer of sweetened cream cheese (the “sauce”), and topped with colorful, seasonal fresh fruit (the “toppings”). And if you want to really go all out, you can make your sugar cookie dough from scratch, but as a time-saver, refrigerated cookie dough works great.
There are all sorts of fun ways to customize your fruit pizza, too! For example, you can:
- Make a 4th of July fruit pizza. To make a fun red, white, and blue 4th of July fruit pizza, top yours with any combination of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and/or banana. (You can also use a rectangular baking sheet and arrange the berries and bananas in a stars and stripes pattern to make an American flag fruit pizza.)
- Make a Valentine’s fruit pizza. Slice a bunch of strawberries vertically and then cut out a little upside-down triangle on the top of them to shape the strawberries like hearts for a fun Valentine’s fruit pizza.
- Make a Christmas fruit pizza. Top your pizza with any combo of strawberries, raspberries, green grapes and kiwi.
- Make it healthier: For a more healthy fruit pizza, feel free to use vanilla Greek yogurt as the frosting. I just recommend serving it immediately if you use Greek yogurt, since it won’t hold up as long as the cream cheese frosting.
- Make it vegan: Use vegan cream cheese in the frosting instead of traditional (dairy) cream cheese. There are also vegan refrigerated cookie dough options, or you could make your own vegan cookie dough.
- Make fruit pizza cookies: Instead of making one large fruit pizza, you can just bake individual sugar cookies instead, and then top them with the frosting and fruit.
However you decide to make it–you can’t go wrong!
Fabulously Delicious Fruit Pizza
Ingredients
- 1 16.5 oz pkg refrigerated sugar cookie dough
- 1 12 oz. cream cheese softened
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1 tsp pure vanilla
- 1 1/4 cup powdered sugar sifted
- 3 kiwi peeled and thinly sliced
- 2 medium bananas thinly sliced widthwise
- 1 15 oz. can peaches in light syrup drained
- 1 pint blueberries rinsed
- 10 – 12 strawberries thinly sliced lengthwise
Fruit Glaze
- 3 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 1/2 cups fruit juice apple, orange, or pineapple work well
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 tsp lemon juice
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350°F. Spray a 12-inch pizza pan with cooking spray.
- Press refrigerated dough evenly onto your prepared pan to create a circle shape. Bake for 14-16 minutes or until light golden brown around the edges. Cool completely, while you slice your fruit (except bananas) and prepare the frosting and fruit glaze.
- Put the pizza pan on top of a wire cooling rack to allow complete cooling while completing other steps.
Fruit Glaze
- In a small saucepan over medium heat, add cornstarch, fruit juice, sugar, and lemon juice. Bring to a boil, then cook, stirring constantly, until glaze is thick (should stick to the back of a spoon), about 5 to 7 minutes.
- Remove the saucepan from heat and allow the glaze to cool to room temperature while starting the frosting.
Frosting
- With an electric mixer, beat butter on medium speed until smooth. Beat in cream cheese and vanilla. Gradually beat in powdered sugar until smooth and creamy.
- Cut up all of your fruit, saving the bananas for last.
- Spread frosting over cooled cookie crust, and arrange the fruit on top.
- Paint the fruit glaze over all of the fruit, especially the bananas.