Fruit Pizza Bar

🍓🍇🍌🥭 This Fruit Pizza Bar is perfect for any occasion and great for a crowd! A soft cookie layered with fluffy cream cheese frosting then topped with your favorite fruit. Lay out a spread, and let each person assemble their own!

Not to overstate it, but I think I may have solved your summertime dessert quandary. Introducing the fruit pizza bar. Several things make this dessert a stand out success:
1. The display is breathtaking. Look at all those colors.
2. Basic ingredients come together to form an addicting dessert experience.
3. Everyone assembles their own. #lessworkforthehost #happyeaters
4. Did I mention that these little guys are amazing?

I know that fruit pizza isn’t a new idea, after all they have been around since I was a little girl. This is a recipe that started out on my mom’s side and has now been eagerly adopted into both sides of the family. I have an aunt and a cousin who are especially thankful when I serve this. Isn’t that what makes serving food so fun? Knowing that it blesses them in some small way.

Try these fruit pizzas at any occasion when good fruit is in season. Our favorites are Easter, Mother’s Day, graduations, and 4th of July. However, these make a perfect shower or rehearsal dinner dessert as well.

Fruit Pizza Perfection

By making this an individual, build-your-own dessert, we have given the classic fruit pizza a modern spin that keeps the problematic sides of fruit pizza at bay.

• Often fruit pizza has to be assembled at the last minute so that the fruit doesn’t seep all over the frosting. Too fussy.
• The frosting is stiff. Too hard to spread.
• Picky eaters complain about the kinds of fruit on their piece. Too hard to please everyone.
• It’s hard to get a giant pizza to look beautiful because all the pieces of fruit need to be uniform in size. Too painstaking.

But not with these little guys. No matter what fruit you choose or how you pile it on, it ends up looking like the best bite of summer.

Ingredients

Flour: Basic all-purpose.
Sugar: White granulated sugar is used in both the cookie base and the frosting.
Butter: Salted or unsalted.
Egg: One is all you need.
Cream of Tartar: This is essential to the texture. Don’t skip or substitute.
Baking soda: Helps create the soft cookie we are looking for.
Cream Cheese: Plain block cream cheese is perfect.
Vanilla: Use the real deal here. With only three ingredients in the frosting, each one is important.

Instructions

Step 1: Make the cookies.

This is your basic cookie recipe. After beating the butter and sugar together for a couple minutes so that it gets nice and fluffy, it’s time to add the egg. Once the egg is mixed in, the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar are added just until combined. You want to handle the dough as gently as possible so that it remains tender. To take the dough out of the bowl, gather it in a ball.

Now it’s time to roll it out. Set it on the countertop and roll it ¼ inch thick. Here’s the trick. You want to roll it in a shape that will produce the most circles on the first round of cutting. It is fine to gather the scraps of dough and keep cutting but each time the scraps are gathered the dough gets more tough. Be gentle though and all will be fine. Place the circles on a parchment lined baking sheet. They bake until they are puffy and the edges are very lightly golden. 

As a helpful side note: If I ever make these using the roll of parchment paper that is too wide for my cookie sheet, the paper ends up sliding around when removing the cookies from the oven, causing the cookies to squish and become misshapen. I have started to cut down the paper to the size of the cookie sheet for this particular recipe.

Step 2: Make the frosting.

So easy but so delicious! Add the three ingredients to your bowl and mix on medium speed for a couple minutes. As it beats it gets fluffier so don’t cut the time short. If it doesn’t look quite fluffy enough feel free to beat a bit longer. 

Step 3: Slice fruit.

Since these little jewels are going to adorn the tops of the pizzas, pay attention to how they are cut. While it doesn’t require precision, the pieces of fruit should be approximately the same size as the other pieces of fruit. Of course, the blackberries and raspberries do not get cut. Whatever size they are is the size they should remain. 

Honestly, the list of possible fruit choices is a very flexible list. Probably the number one tip is to use what is in season for the best flavor. Our favorites are: berries (all kinds), banana, kiwi, pineapple, tangerines, peaches, nectarines, grapes, and mangos.

Questions & Answers

Can I freeze fruit pizzas?

You can freeze the dough already cut out in circles. Just add 1-2 minutes to the baking time.

Can I prep fruit pizza ahead?

The best way to prep ahead is to have the bases cut and in the freezer up to a month in advance. Make the filling and store it in the fridge for up to 5 days. Most of the fruit is best if cut on the day of. Bananas shouldn’t be cut until the moment you want to serve because they turn brown very quickly.

How to serve this to a crowd?

This is the perfect dessert for a crowd. The recipe for the bases doesn’t come out as well if you triple it, so make two (or more) double batches to keep the cookies tender. Also have two bowls or platters of everything to make the assembly process go faster.

Look at these other summertime recipes

• Summer screams lemon and these two are absolute perfection. Bake up this Lemon Curd Coffee Cake or this Lemon Yogurt Cake. Or for something without lemon this Triple Berry Cobbler is 😋. You won't be sorry!
• Summer is also the quintessential time to turn on the grill and this Grilled Sweet & Savory Flank Steak is a winner any day of the week. Or try these Grilled Honey Chicken (un)Kabobs. Getting my grill ready now!

Tips & Tricks

• Be super gentle with the dough once the flour has been added to ensure a tender cookie.
• Do not overbake. The cookies will become hard and they need to be soft and chewy.
• Cut all the fruit to approximately the same size. And make sure they are small enough to easily fit on the cookie.

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