Valentine's Day Fruit Pizza
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One of my family’s favorite dessert recipes is fruit pizza! If you haven’t heard of that before, it is basically a cross between a cookie cake and a tart. It has a sugar cookie base, cream cheese frosting, topped with fruit, and covered in an orange glaze. Fruit pizza is divine and people always go nuts for it. It’s a relatively easy dessert that can mostly be prepped ahead of time, plus it’s really pretty. Honestly, what’s not to love?! Speaking of love, with v-day coming up, I thought it would make for the perfect Valentine’s Day dessert… though I will say that Fruit Pizza is always a good idea!
Keep reading to see how I made my family’s fruit pizza recipe, with a special twist for Valentine’s Day.
I had a little Galentine’s Day get together this and wanted to make some fun treats. I wanted something different, but something I knew and I loved, so that is when the idea for a Valentine’s Day themed Fruit Pizza! Since having kids, I’ve been operating on a “what’s on fire” basis, versus working well ahead of time. Point being, when I went to order a heart shaped pan, I wasn’t able to order the size I wanted because it wouldn’t arrive in time for my party. I decided to go with this 8” heart instead; however, you don’t have to have that. My mom uses a circular 12” dish, but use whatever works for you. Because the 8” pan is smaller than what the recipe calls for, I made two and it was kind of cute to have that! I thought about making one of them a broken heart, but went with just two regular hearts instead, to keep with. more of an upbeat theme.
Fruit pizza is glorious in its original form, don’t read my post the wrong way. My mom makes hers with mandarin oranges (canned), bananas, strawberries, kiwi, and blueberries. For Valentine’s flair I wanted to only use red fruit, so I went with raspberries, strawberries, and cherries. The original glaze uses orange juice. Instead of that, I bought blood oranges. They are a little bit sweeter than regular oranges and offer up a natural pink hue. Mix those changes with a heart shaped cookie and you have yourself the perfect valentine’s day treat!
VALENTINE’S DAY FRUIT PIZZA RECIPE
Like I mentioned above, it’s so easy! You can easily make the cookie and prep the frosting and glaze ahead of time, which leaves minimal work day of. Enjoy!!
INGREDIENTS
Cookie:
Sugar Cookie Dough (A 16.05 oz tube works fine! If you want to make it from scratch, I like this recipe. Just weigh it so you know how much to use.)
Frosting:
8 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Fruit Topping:
Sweet Red Cherries (one bag is more than enough, you need the least amount of cherries)
2 6 oz crates of Raspberries (I used 1.5 tiny cartons - you might be able to get away with 1, just make sure you have full, un-smooshed raspberries. I would not use frozen.)
Strawberries (one 10 oz crate is more than enough.)
For the original fruit pizza you need mandarin oranges (canned), bananas, strawberries, blueberries, and kiwi.
Glaze:
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp kosher salt
2 TBS cornstarch (can sub for arrowroot powder if you prefer)
4 blood oranges, juiced (You need 1 cup of juice! To make the regular glaze just just use regular orange juice.)
INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat your oven to 350 F. Trace parchment paper to the shape of your pan and place inside. Make your cookie dough or grab your tube from the fridge. Evenly press the cookie dough into your pan(s). If you’re using heart pans like me, you’ll use about 8 oz (half of a tube) per pan. I only bought one pan and baked one at a time. You can re-use the parchment too! Bake for 10-15 minutes - I baked 14 minutes. Let it cool about 5 minutes before removing it from your pan and place on a cooling rack. Note that when you make a circulate one, you may not want to remove it from the pan and that is okay. My mom leaves hers on the glass baking dish. You can bake this the day prior if you’d like! I wouldn’t bake any earlier than that.
Make your frosting by mixing all of the ingredients. Do not spread on until the cookie is entirely cooled. I divided it in half to spread on each heart. You can make the frosting ahead of time, but leave it out overnight / for several hours, so it will easily spread when you need to frost the cooled cookie.
Mix all of the glaze ingredients in a pot and bring it to boil over medium high heat, constantly stirring. Once it is boiling, continue stirring and only boil for 1 minute. DO NOT OVER BOIL. Let it cool. Make this ahead of time if you can and leave in your fridge until you’re ready to top.
Prep your fruit! Wash it, then gently pat dry. Raspberries stay whole. Slice your strawberries into thin pieces. Cut around the cherry pit or de-pit, then slice into thin pieces.
Frost your cookie, then place dry fruit. I outlined the hearts with raspberries, open-side down. Place strawberries point out / to the center of the cookie, then fill in with other strawberry bits to cover up the frosting in-between. You may have to slice the strawberries further to fit. Lay the cherry slices to fill in the center / tiny heart shape that is left. I did this flesh side up, but you could do it either way.
If you are making the original fruit pizza, you do mandarin oranges on the edges, then bananas under each orange, strawberries (point side towards the outside of the pizza), then kiwi slices in the middle. Place blueberries in the holes amongst the strawberries.
All that is left now is to glaze! Pour over your cookie(s) gently spreading it over the top with a spatula. I used half on each cookie. For a more refined look, don’t spread over the raspberries. I spread it everywhere, because the glaze is so yummy! Note that the raspberries are just a little harder to cover.
Place in the fridge, covered, until serving. Best consumed in 3-5 days, otherwise the cookie gets really soggy.
Below is a reference photo for the traditional fruit pizza.
Oh and yes! You can totally make mini fruit pizzas. My mom has used muffin tins to create smaller “pizzas”. Just use smaller pieces of fruit and it is perfect for a brunch or bridal shower. I hope you love this recipe as much as my family does. The Valentine’s version is so good, but don’t sleep on the original.
If you need any other Valentine’s Day ideas, this garland is so cute! I have a Valentine’s Day Amazon section too and most of the items are Prime. I hope you feel loved! XOXO
P.S. For reference, here’s what I made for this party besides the Fruit Pizza… DF GF chocolate dipped strawberries with Enjoy Life Chocolate chips and some sprinkles, plus Sally’s Bake Blog Chocolate Raspberry Cake. I also had a little popcorn bar with Lesser Evil popcorn, Valentine’s Day M&M’s, Peanut M&M’s, dark chocolate almonds, and dark chocolate peanut butter cups.
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