How to Make Fruit Pizza

Published 02/26/2020

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Fruit pizza is basically the dessert equivalent of an adult coloring book—it’s more of an idea than a hard-and-fast recipe, making it super easy to get creative and customize the base, the spread and the colored fruit toppings. Play around and craft your own design, using these easy ideas to help get you started!

What Base to Use for Fruit Pizza

The crust of fruit pizza is super easy to customize based on your preferences. Our favorites are sugar cookie dough, pie crust dough and crescent dough. Aside from tasting delicious, these three products cut way down on the prep time for fruit pizza—scratch dough takes a long time to prepare!—which means planning for parties and potlucks at the last minute just got much easier.

Start with Cookie Dough

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Though you can start with any cookie dough you’d like, our favorite cookie dough to use when making fruit pizza is Pillsbury™ sugar cookie dough. Paired with frosting and all kinds of fresh fruits like berries, kiwi and bananas, sugar cookie fruit pizza is perfect for those of you with a major sweet tooth.

Expert tip: You can also make individual cookie-sized fruit pizzas with our Ready to Bake!™ sugar cookie dough for an easy grab-and-go dessert option!

Start with Crescent Dough

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Oh crescent dough, is there anything you can’t do? Pillsbury™ crescent dough proves its versatility yet again when it comes to fruit pizza. This buttery dough strikes the perfect flavor balance with sweet toppings like cream cheese frosting or Nutella™. Not convinced? Our Apple and Cream Cheese Pizza is all the proof you need.

Start with Pie Crust

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Pie crust doesn’t have to be used just for pie. Fruit pizza often contains similar ingredients to fruit and cream pies, so it makes sense that pie crust makes an excellent base for fruit pizzas. Our personal favorite? This Easy Fresh Fruit Dessert Pizza that piles fruits like berries, apples and kiwi on top of a decadent cream cheese spread.

What Spread to Use for Fruit Pizza

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From frosting to Nutella™, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a sweet spread that tastes bad on top of fruit pizza. These are just some of our favorite ideas!

Cream Cheese Spread

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Cream cheese is one of our all-time favorite dessert ingredients and using it to make fruit pizza is no exception. Combined with flavors like vanilla or maple, cream cheese spread is fluffy and sweet, and complements various fruit toppings perfectly. Try our Apple-Gingersnap Crumble Cookie Pizza and you’ll see exactly what we mean.

Nutella® Spread

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We are officially giving you permission to spread Nutella™ all over your pizza. This chocolate-hazelnut spread tastes amazing on any base topped with fruits like bananas and strawberries with additional garnishes like honey and nuts. Our favorite pizza to make with Nutella™ is this addicting banana-topped one—caramelize the bananas easily with our simple microwave method!

Whipped Topping

When in doubt, you can always turn to reliable whipped topping for an easy, quick and totally delicious fruit pizza. This can be a great substitute for cream cheese frosting for days you’re super low on time and need to throw together a treat fast!

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Easy Fruit Pizza prepared recipe topped with blueberries, kiwi and strawberries

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We top fruit pizzas with…fruit, of course! This is your chance to get really creative, from the types of fruit you choose to the patterns you use to arrange the fruit.

Types of Fruit

Really, the sky is the limit when it comes to what types of fruit you can use to top your fruit pizza. Some of our favorites include:

Berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries)
Apples
Kiwi
Pineapple
Melon (like cantaloupe!)
Peaches
Grapes

Other Toppings for Your Fruit Pizza

In addition to fresh fruit, you can make you fruit pizza even more delicious with a few finishing touches. Drizzle your fruit pizza with melted chocolate (dark, white and milk chocolates are all tasty options), caramel (make it homemade or use caramel topping that has been warmed a bit in the microwave) or even hot fudge topping. Sprinkle your fruit pizza with nuts like almonds, or crushed cookies like gingersnaps or Oreos™. You can even add a sprinkle of powdered sugar, extra citrus zest (we like lemon!) or a nice glaze to your fruit by brushing with apple jelly, like in our Easy Fruit Pizza recipe.

Three Ways to Decorate Fruit Pizza

Fruit pizza is your blank canvas. You can decorate it however you want! But if you need some ideas to get you started, we have three simple ways to decorate your fruit pizza that will earn you wows with you family and friends.

Rings

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Arrange your fruit in circular rings, using one type of fruit for each ring.

Spirals

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Create a fun spiral pattern, alternating with different fruit types.

Random

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No need to follow a design! Arranging your fruit in a random pattern is equally as beautiful as the rings and spirals patterns.

How to Make Our Potluck-Favorite Easy Fruit Pizza

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Our Easy Fruit Pizza is consistently one of the most popular recipes on Pillsbury.com. Reviewers love this recipe for its ease and impressive look! Pillsbury fan smdm7636 says, “Had a family gathering and everyone loved it. My grandchildren couldn't stop eating it. Everyone told me they want it at every family gathering. So easy, and delicious!” Here’s how to make it.

Ingredients

1 roll Pillsbury™ refrigerated sugar cookies
1 package (8 oz) softened cream cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 kiwi, peeled, halved lengthwise and sliced
1 cup halved or quartered fresh strawberries
1 cup fresh blueberries
1/2 cup apple jelly

Equipment

12-inch pizza pan
Cooking spray
Small bowl
Electric mixer
Spatula
Pastry brush
Pizza cutter

Step 1: Heat your oven to 350°F and spray your pizza pan with some cooking spray. Next, break up the sugar cookie dough in the pizza pan and press the dough down evenly in the bottom of the pan to within 1/2 inch of the edge. Bake the sugar cookie pizza crust for 16 to 20 minutes, or until it’s golden brown. Note: the center will be soft, but don’t worry! It will set while it cools. You will want to cool your sugar cookie crust for about 30 minutes before spreading the frosting over the crust.

Expert tip: For easier cleanup and removal, we recommend lining the pan with cooking parchment paper. Cut a 14-inch round of parchment paper, then line your pizza pan, leaving some to hang over edge of pan. Hold the parchment paper in place by adding a dab of shortening or softened butter on pan before placing the parchment. Do not spray or grease cooking parchment paper. Press dough 1/2 inch from edge of lined pan and continue with recipe as directed.

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Step 2: Time to make that delicious cream cheese frosting. Simply beat the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla with an electric mixer set on medium speed until the mixture look fluffy. Spread all of the frosting evenly over the cooled crust.

Spread the frosting evenly over the cooled crust.

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Step 3: Now for the fun part! Arrange your fruit over the cream cheese frosting using whatever pattern you like—we went with a random design for this recipe, but you can follow instructions for the round or spiral patterns as explained earlier. To add a finishing touch, stir the apple jelly until it’s smooth and use a pastry brush to gently brush it over the fruit.

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Step 4: Refrigerate the fruit pizza for about an hour or until it’s nice and chilled. Then you can serve it to your family and/or guests! Cut it into wedges or squares with a pizza cutter and store any leftovers covered in the refrigerator (but we have a feeling the entire pizza will disappear fast!).

Watch the Video

Watch fruit pizza come together in this easy-to-follow video.

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FAQs

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Can I make fruit pizza ahead of time?
You can easily make the crust ahead of time for fruit pizza—whether you are using sugar cookie dough, pie crust or crescent dough, bake the crust and store it at room temperature for up to 24 hours before serving. We recommend topping the fruit pizza about an hour before you plan to serve it.

My cookie crust got too soft in the fridge. How do I prevent this?
There are a few things you can do to ensure your crust doesn’t get too soft in the refrigerator. Allow the crust to cool completely before topping it with the spread and fruit. Also, if you are making the crust ahead of time, don’t top it until an hour before you plan to serve the pizza. If you have to store this fruit pizza a few hours ahead of time, try laying out your cut-up fruit on a layer of paper towel to absorb some of the extra moisture before arranging on top of the pizza.

Can I use frozen fruit on my fruit pizza?
You can definitely use frozen fruit to make your fruit pizza! Just make sure you thaw and drain the frozen fruit before putting it on top of the pizza.