Fruit Pizza

Colorful fruit pizza features a vibrant bounty of fruit atop a soft sugar cookie crust and thick, tangy cream cheese frosting. Choose your favorite fruits to customize this classic summertime dessert!

There’s just something so summery about a fruit pizza. Maybe it’s the bright, glossy colors… or the freshness of in-season fruits and berries… or the fact that it reminds me of a sunburst or a firework exploding in the sky. Out of our entire list of desserts for a BBQ cookout and 4th of July desserts, fruit pizza is usually the first one I recommend.

The combination of a soft, buttery sugar cookie crust with tangy-sweet cream cheese frosting and colorful fresh fruit is nostalgic AND irresistible!

Here’s Why You Need to Try This Fruit Pizza

Completely from scratch, but easy!
Tons of texture in each bite.
Fun to make and decorate—a great one for kids to help.
Endlessly customizable with various fruits + berries.
Easy to slice and serve.
It’s visually stunning without the need for any special decorating tools or skills.
Slightly updated recipe is better than ever!

I originally published this dessert recipe in 2014, but I’ve made some updates to the recipe, and want to share them with you. I also filmed a new video tutorial and you can find that in the recipe below.

8 Ingredient Sugar Cookie Crust

No pizza dough or pie crust needed today! This fruit pizza’s sugar cookie crust is soft in the center with a slightly crisp edge. It’s like a thicker, larger version of classic sugar cookies. And it’s really easy.

You’ll use familiar sugar cookie ingredients: flour, sugar, butter, egg, vanilla, baking powder, and salt; plus, we’re adding cornstarch to make the cookie crust extra soft. This recipe used to call for baking soda in the cookie dough, but it really wasn’t necessary or useful, so we’re using just baking powder now. You can read about the differences on this Baking Powder vs Baking Soda page.

Success Tip: Chill the Dough for Just 20 Minutes

The easy dough comes together with a mixer. It’s quite sticky and soft because there’s so little flour, so chill it in the refrigerator for 20 minutes before pressing onto your pan. We want the sugar cookie crust to spread some in the oven, but not so much that it escapes the pan! The crust holds its shape much better if the dough is slightly cold. Then use your fingers to press the dough onto the pizza pan, shaping it into a 9–10-inch circle. (A 12-inch pizza pan works perfectly. Just make sure you aren’t using a pizza crisper pan with the little holes/air vents in it.)

Sugar Cookie Crust FAQs

Could I use another cookie dough for the crust? Yes! You could change things up and make a chocolate chip cookie pizza as an alternative to the sugar cookie crust. I think this would be delicious with frosting + strawberries or raspberries on top. Maybe a little drizzle of melted chocolate, too? Why not!
Can I make this without a pizza pan? Yes, you can press this crust into a 9–10-inch circle or square on a regular baking sheet or press into a 9×13-inch baking pan. You can also double the recipe for a giant 12×17-inch fruit pizza. See recipe Note.

4 Ingredient Cream Cheese Frosting

We’re using a scaled-down version of this cream cheese frosting for the pizza “sauce.” It’s smooth, creamy, and spreads with ease. You need 4 ingredients including cream cheese, butter, confectioners’ sugar, and vanilla extract. Use brick-style cream cheese, not the cream cheese spread in a tub.

In the previous version of this recipe, the frosting was extremely sweet and yielded A LOT. I reduced the confectioners’ sugar from 2 cups down to 1 and 1/4 cups, and I also slightly reduced the butter. I kept the same amount of cream cheese and vanilla extract. The result is a less-cloyingly sweet frosting with just the right amount of tang to balance out the sweet crust and fruit. You could add a bit of lemon juice for a little extra zing!

My strawberry buttercream frosting would also be fantastic on top of this fruit pizza. A wonderful pop of color and flavor!

Best Fruits for Fruit Pizza

I especially like to use:

apples, nectarines or peaches (brush with a little lemon juice to prevent from browning)
grapes (2 colors to choose from!)
kiwi
plums
cantaloupe
mangoes
oranges (or canned mandarin slices, drained)
pineapple
fresh berries like blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries

Fruits to avoid: I recommend steering clear of watermelon on fruit pizza because the water content can make the pizza soggy. Banana slices are fine to use, but they brown quickly, so brush them with a little lemon juice and serve the fruit pizza right away.

Whatever fruit you use, make sure to cut it into thin, bite-size pieces. When you slice the pizza, smaller pieces of fruit hold up better and are easier to serve (and eat). Small fruits like blueberries and raspberries are great choices because you don’t have to slice or peel them. It’s a prep-work shortcut you can always appreciate in recipes like blueberry pie.

Now Let’s Decorate!

The crust + frosting is your blank canvas, and now you get to make edible artwork! Decorate your fruit pizza in colorful patterns, get creative with elaborate designs, or simply just pile the fruit on top. You can really let your—or your child’s—creativity shine.

I usually make rings with the fruits, so that when the pizza is cut, each slice contains some of each fruit. If you’re in the USA, you could use strawberries and blueberries on top of the white frosting for festive holidays like Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day.

Here are a few more fun fruit pizza design ideas:

Make a rainbow pizza with a stripe of each color made up of 7 different fruits. You could even tint the frosting blue with gel food coloring, and add fluffy marshmallow clouds!
Make a sunburst design using all yellow and orange fruits.
Create a funny face or a favorite animal—a colorful butterfly would be fun to design!
Use small cookie cutters to cut shapes out of some of the larger, sturdier fruits, like apples, cantaloupe, papaya, or kiwi. Or simply slice up some star fruit—nature’s done the shaping for you!

Description

Colorful fruit pizza features a vibrant bounty of fruit atop a soft sugar cookie crust and thick, tangy cream cheese frosting. Choose your favorite fruits to customize this classic summertime dessert!

Ingredients

Sugar Cookie Crust

1 and 1/2 cups (188g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
1 and 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (8 Tbsp; 113g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
3/4 cup (150g) granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Topping

8 ounces (226g) full-fat brick cream cheese, softened to room temperature
3 Tablespoons (43g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 and 1/4 cups (150g) confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 cups (about 400g) assorted sliced fresh fruit

Instructions

Make the crust: Whisk the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl.
In a large bowl using a handheld mixer or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together on medium-high speed until combined and creamy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and beat on low speed until combined. Once completely combined, cover the dough tightly and chill in the refrigerator for 20 minutes and up to 1 day. (Let dough sit out at room temperature for 20-30 minutes if chilling longer than a couple hours because the dough will be quite stiff and flattening onto pan will be difficult.)
Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Grease a 12-inch pizza pan with nonstick spray (even if it’s a nonstick pan). Remove chilled cookie dough from the refrigerator and press onto the pizza pan in a 9–10-inch circle, about 1/3-inch thick. Bake for 17–19 minutes or until the edges are very lightly browned. Avoid over-baking. Cool crust completely before decorating.
Make the frosting: In a medium bowl using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, beat the cream cheese and butter together on medium speed until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the confectioners’ sugar and vanilla. Beat for 1 minute or until creamy and combined. Yields 1 and 1/2 cups (about 390g) frosting. Spread a thick layer over the cooled sugar cookie crust. Decorate with fruit.
Cut into slices and serve. Leftovers keep well in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Notes

1. Make Ahead Instructions: Prepare the cookie crust and frosting 1 day in advance—cover each tightly and keep the cookie at room temperature and the frosting in the refrigerator. Frost and assemble the day of serving.
2. Special Tools (affiliate links): Glass Mixing Bowl | Whisk | Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Nonstick Pizza Pan or Baking Sheet | Icing Spatula
3. Pizza Pan: Make sure you aren’t using a pizza crisper pan with the little holes/air vents in it. The pizza pan I use is this nonstick pizza pan.
4. Can I make this without a pizza pan? Yes, you can press this crust into a 9–10-inch circle or square on a regular baking sheet or press into a very thin crust in a 9×13-inch baking pan. Bake time is about the same, usually a minute or two less if using a 9×13-inch pan. No need to chill the cookie dough if using a 9×13-inch pan.
5. Can I make this in a half sheet/jelly roll pan? Yes, but double the crust, frosting, and fruit. Press crust into a greased 12×17-inch pan. About the same bake time. No need to chill the cookie dough if doubling and pressing into a 12×17-inch pan.
6. Cornstarch: You can skip the cornstarch if you don’t have any. No need to replace with anything.
7. Adding Flavor to Frosting: Feel free to add 2–3 teaspoons of fresh lemon or lime juice, plus the zest of either fruit. Alternatively, you could add 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract.
8. Updated in 2022: The crust used to call for 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda (in addition to the baking powder in the recipe), but it wasn’t necessary so we no longer use it. Additionally, the frosting used to be extremely sweet and yielded a lot. I reduced the confectioners’ sugar down from 2 cups (240g) to 1 and 1/4 cups (150g). I also reduced the butter from 4 Tablespoons down to 3. The recipe above reflects these changes.

Source: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/fruit-pizza/