Side Dish - Fruit Pizza

For Matt's birthday, I decided to whip up one of my personal favorite recipes. This one comes to me from a long time family friend, Pat.

Pat cooks up the most delicious things; aside from fruit pizza, her other specialty are these delicious sugar cookies which (luckily for me!) showed up at probably half the birthday parties I attended throughout my youth, since she would bake them for both her own kids and for me and my sister on occasion too!

We look forward to enjoying fruit pizza whenever we head to her family's house for something special, and I can honestly say that everyone I know who has tried it has LOVED it. There's just something about mixing cookie dough with cream cheese and fruit that makes it taste fantastic.

The other great thing about this recipe is that it is very versatile. You can use whatever kind of fruit fits your fancy, whether it is fresh or canned. You could also probably use frozen fruit after it has been defrosted and drained.

The recipe is also fairly quick to make, with assembly taking part in 3 stages:
-Preparation of the "crust" (most time consuming as you need to wait for the crust to cool)
-Creation and spreading of the cream cheese "sauce"
-Applying the "toppings" of fruit

Be sure to cut the pizza into thin slices so you don't feel guilty when you go back to grab a second or third piece!!

Fruit Pizza

Ingredients:
-1 log refrigerated sugar cookie dough
-1 (8 oz) container Cool Whip
-1 (8 oz) container cream cheese
-Fresh fruit or canned fruit of your choice (I used blueberry, strawberry, kiwi, and banana)

For the glaze:
-1/2 cup sugar
-1/2 cup orange juice
-1/4 cup water
-1 tablespoon corn starch
-2 tablespoons lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut sugar cookie dough into 1/8 inch slices and place on round pizza pan, slightly overlapping.
Leave 1/4 inch border around pan.
Bake 5-10 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool.
Blend cream cheese and Cool Whip until smooth and spread over the cookie dough crust. Arrange sliced fruit in any order on top. (I like to make a pretty pattern, but feel free to do this however you want!)
To make the glaze, mix glaze ingredients listed above together, simmer in a small pot until it thickens to a glaze-like consistency, and let cool. Pour cooled glaze over the entire pizza, then put completed pizza into the refrigerator to chill. Enjoy!