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. This recipe was good before, but I knew it could be even better.
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.)
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! Pastry cream would also be a fantastic alternative to the cream cheese frosting—as would my strawberry buttercream frosting. 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!
More Favorite Summer Desserts
Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches & Ice Cream Cake No-Bake Cheesecake (and mini no-bake cheesecakes) Strawberry Cream Cheese Pie Berry Cobbler or Berry Galette No-Bake Greek Yogurt Fruit Tart Strawberry Shortcake Cake Triple Berry Pie
See Your Fruit Pizzas!
Many readers tried this recipe as part of a baking challenge!
