Summer Kick-Off: Make Individual Fruit Pizzas

By Deborah Pace Rowley

My favorite treat in the summer is fruit pizza, but with picky kids not everyone likes the same combination of fruits that I do on top. By making individual fruit pizzas, everyone gets to top their pizza exactly the way that they want to and you combine a fun activity and a treat at the same time.

First you need to make some sugar cookie dough. You can use your favorite recipe or buy some packaged sugar cookie dough. Here is my favorite recipe:

Sugar Cookies

2/3 cup shortening

¾ cup sugar

1 egg

4 Tablespoons milk

½ teaspoon vanilla

2 cups sifted flour

1 ½ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

Blend wet ingredients well then add in dry ingredients. Chill the dough for at least one hour in the fridge or dough will be too soft to work with. Roll out the dough on a surface sprinkled with flour and cut into shapes as desired. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 8-10 minutes or until the edges are slightly brown.

Once the cookies are baked, make the cream cheese frosting. I just blend 4 oz. of cream cheese with about 1/2 cup powdered sugar and enough milk to create the right consistency. Then set out an assortment of fruit, the cream cheese frosting and the sugar cookies and let everyone jump in and create their own.

Fun fruits to use include: bananas, strawberries, mandarin oranges, kiwis, pineapple, peaches, blueberries, raspberries and mangos. These cookies taste so much fresher and more delicious than the usual frosted kind. Perfect for summer fun!