The Best Fruit Pizza
The best fruit pizza starts with my favorite sugar cookie crust recipe and it’s topped with my signature tangy cream cheese frosting. Decorate with any fruit that you like! Rainbow dessert!
COLORFUL FRUIT PIZZA!
If there’s ever a time when you eat with your eyes first, it’s with this colorful fruit dessert pizza. A soft and chewy sugar cookie base with just the right amount of sweetness, so it’s not cloyingly sweet by the time you top it with frosting. The cream cheese frosting has a hint of lemon juice that cuts through some of that sweetness and pairs beautifully with your favorite fruit. It’s also a fun project for the summer to make with kiddos. They can decorate the whole pizza or even just their own slices!
Fruit pizza is 10x better when you make it with a homemade sugar cookie crust, and other than a quick 10 minutes to cool the crust down, there’s really no waiting around. Usually, you see fruit pizza recipes call for store-bought sugar cookie dough. I’ve made it simple enough to make the crust at home with mostly pantry staple ingredients.
A fruit pizza is the perfect cooling treat for the summertime. Especially for Father’s Day or the 4th of July! We sometimes make this on pizza night for dessert!
Ingredients to make a fruit pizza at home:
- Softened butter: we’re using butter in both the cookie dough as well as the cream cheese frosting. It’s crucial for a sugar cookie recipe that the butter be softened to room temperature. I also prefer to use salted butter so that we can skip the salt altogether. If you have unsalted butter on hand, add ¼ teaspoon of kosher salt to the cookie dough.
- Granulated sugar: the sugar gives the cookies a slight crispness to the edges. I use a 1:1 ratio of softened butter and granulated sugar for my sugar cookie fruit pizza base.
- An egg: the egg adds structure and stability to the baked goods
- Extracts: I use both vanilla and almond extract for this recipe. I know that almond extract isn’t something that everyone loves, so you’re welcome to omit it if you’d like. But this is my favorite extract, and it’s made with almond oil instead of an artificial almond flavor, and it makes this and my sugar cookies taste delicious.
- All-purpose flour: a pretty standard ingredient for cookie baking.
- Baking powder: aids in giving the cookie crust the tiniest rise so that it’s soft and chewy in the middle and not hard like a cracker.
- Lemon juice: my secret frosting ingredient that gives it the BEST flavor. I use it in my 1-hour cinnamon rolls, my spice cake, and my overnight breakfast bake too.
- Cream cheese: softened cream cheese is the base of the frosting.
- Powdered Sugar: powdered sugar is added to the cream cheese frosting for sweetness.
- Fresh fruit: You can use anything from fresh berries (make a flag fruit pizza for the 4th of July!) to mandarin orange slices, mangoes, kiwis, grapes, and even apples or bananas!
Let’s make the best fruit pizza:
- Make the crust: get the sugar and butter going in a bowl using a hand mixer. Then, add the egg and continue mixing; you’ll add the extracts in one the egg is combined. Then, add the flour and baking powder and mix just long enough so the dough comes together. I usually stop the mixer, dump the dough out onto parchment and finish incorporating the last bit of flour there. Roll the dough out on parchment, transfer the parchment paper to a pizza pan, and place the pan in the freezer to cool down the dough until the oven is done preheating.
- Bake the crust. When the oven is preheated, bake the cookie crust. I like mine slightly under-baked, so I pull it out around 11ish minutes. You can let it go for up to 15 minutes if you prefer more of a snap and crunch to your cookie pizza crust. Let the crust cool for 10-15 minutes at room temperature, then pop into the freezer to cool it down faster.
- Frost and decorate. Whip the cream cheese and butter together until smooth, add the vanilla, lemon juice, and powdered sugar, and continue to mix until combined. Spread the frosting on the cookie crust when the crust has cooled. Top with chopped fruit in any pattern you like! You can serve immediately or wrap and let cool until ready to serve.
Tips for making fruit pizza:
- Don’t overwork the dough. You want to stop the hand mixer before all the flour is incorporated. Use a rubber spatula to help bring it together or dump it onto parchment, and use your hands to gather the dough.
- For a thicker crust, make a smaller circle and increase the baking time slightly. If you prefer a thicker, more substantial crust, I suggest rolling the dough into a 10 ½ or 11-inch circle and letting the crust bake for 12-15 minutes or until done to your liking.
- Don’t skip the freezer time. It’s just 10 minutes to cool down the dough once you’ve rolled it out, and it happens in the time that the oven preheats, so don’t skip this!
- For a chewy, slightly underbaked crust, pull it out of the oven before the edges turn golden. I know this is a little counter-intuitive. But when making a sugar cookie crust, the key is to pull it out of the oven before it develops any color to get that slightly underbaked texture.
If you like this recipe, you might also like:
- Deep Dish Nutella Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookie
- No-Bake Biscoff Cheesecake
- Creamy Lemon Squares
- Easy Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
- Key Lime Pie Bars (Reader Fave!)
Yield: serves 10-12
The Best Fruit Pizza
Prep Time
20 minutes
Cook Time
11 minutes
Additional Time
11 minutes
Total Time
42 minutes
The best fruit pizza starts with my favorite sugar cookie crust and it's topped with my signature tangy cream cheese frosting. Decorate with any fruit that you like! Rainbow dessert!
Ingredients
Cookie Crust:
- ½ cup salted butter, softened
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg, room temp
- 1 ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼-½ teaspoon almond extract, optional
- 1 ⅓ cup all purpose flour (plus 1-2 tbsp)
- ¾ teaspoon baking powder
Frost and Top:
- 12 ounces cream cheese, softened
- ¼ cup butter, softened
- 1 ½ cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon EACH: lemon juice AND vanilla extract
- Assorted sliced or chopped fruit (berries, kiwi, grapes, mango, etc.)
Instructions
- CRUST: In a large bowl beat butter and sugar with a hand mixer on medium speed for 1 minute. Add the egg and run the mixer for 1 minute, then add vanilla and almond extract and mix for a few seconds. Add 1 ⅓ cups flour and baking powder and mix until the flour is almost incorporated. Dump the dough out onto parchment paper. Lightly sprinkle flour on top of the dough and on a rolling pin. Roll the dough out into a 11½-inch circle. Transfer parchment to a pizza pan. Place crust with pan in the freezer for 10-12 minutes while the oven preheats.
- BAKE: Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350ºF. Bake for 11-15 minutes or until puffy and cooked. We prefer it under-baked so I usually bake for exactly 11 minutes. But you can bake for 13-15 minutes for a more firm crust.
- FROST AND TOP: Whip the cream cheese and butter together on medium speed until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the sugar, lemon juice, and vanilla and continue to whip until combined. If the cream cheese mixture is stiff, add ½ teaspoon of milk. When the crust is cooled, spread frosting on top using an offset spatula and decorate with fruit as desired!
Notes
- Cookie Doneness: 11-12 minutes yields a softer, underbaked sugar cookie crust while baking for 13-15 mins will yield a golden cookie with more of a snap. We prefer it slightly underbaked!
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