Cookie Pizza
First of all, let me address the elephant in the room. I’ve been gone for a long time. I’m sorry for not posting in forever, but life has gotten a little crazy with my new job and new home. After 2 years, I might maybe be getting adjusted to my new normal in life. I hope to be able to come out with monthly posts and videos from here on out, but who knows. But what’s important is that I’m here now with a brand new recipe for y’all!
I feel like this is a dessert that didn’t really have its fair heyday. When you hear “cookie pizza” you often conjure up images of sickeningly sweet desserts pilled high with candies, syrups and chocolate sauce. At least, those seem to have been the one’s I’ve seen most. It’s a dessert for small children, and is used to give them a way to participate in making their own unique dessert. However, there is no rule to say that this dessert needs to be a huge blast of sugar. No, I think you can have a cookie pizza that has the ease of the common image people have but with the sophistication of something like a fresh fruit tart.
Thus, my paired-down and less sweet version was born. It starts with a regular rolled out sugar cookie base. Instead of rolling and cutting out smaller cookies, however, you leave it in one big crust. This gives us a nice blank canvas to build our sophisticated cookie pizza on. I love that this recipe isn’t super sweet and has a really nice soft texture, but still has enough body to hold up to toppings and be picked up. The fun thing about this is that you can make it into any shape you want. You can see that in my example pics, I’ve chosen the American Flag as a design, but you can do anything you want as long as you have enough dough. To that end, note that the picture at the top of this blog and in the video I made, both represent a double batch of this recipe as I was feeding my extended family at our fourth of July party. The recipe below makes half that amount.
To replace the sauce in our pizza, I chose a modified American Buttercream. The modification comes in making it less sweet. Since our version of a cookie pizza generally is topped with fruit, I want to make sure that those are the flavors that shine through, so I pulled back the sugar in the frosting to ensure that the fruit isn’t getting lost in the sweet.
When it comes to toppings, though I chose strawberries, blueberries and white chocolate chips for my American flag design, you can choose whatever toppings you like. Generally, fruit choices should be limited to soft fruits like berries, apricots or kiwi and not what a friend of mine likes to call “sturdy fruit” like apples. This helps to make sure that biting or cutting into your cookie pizza isn’t a chore. But feel free to top with whatever you like. Let your creativity and design fly. Since our cookie and our frosting make a plain vanilla canvas, there really is no limit to the different flavor combinations you can try, so go nuts!
Note that if you’re using fruit, you can choose to go the extra mile and glaze that fruit. You’ll note what a difference it made when I used the glaze on the example cookie pizza on top of the recipe card. It really adds a professional flair and is really not that difficult to make.
I really hope that you try this one out and let me know how it goes. Remember that you don’t have to be a chef to make magic in the kitchen!
Joe the Blue Wizard
Cookie Pizza
Ingredients
- 2 sticks (220 g) Unsalted Butter, softened
- 2/3 cup (132 g) Sugar
- 1/4 tsp. (1.5 g) Kosher Salt
- 1/4 tsp. (1 g) Baking Powder
- 1 Large Egg
- 1 1/2 tsp. (8 mL) Vanilla Extract
- 2 1/2 cups (300 g) Flour
- 2 cups (230 g) Powdered Sugar
- 2 sticks (220 g) Unsalted Butter, softened
- 1/8 tsp (0.7 g) Salt
- 1 tbsp (15 mL) Milk
- 1 tsp (3 mL) Vanilla
- Soft fruit (such as berries, kiwi or banana)
- Chocolate
- Whatever your heart desires
- 1/2 cup (120 mL) Apricot Jam
- 1/4 cup (60 mL) Water
Instructions
- In a large bowl, cream together softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add in salt, baking powder, egg and vanilla. Beat until well combined.
- Stir in flour until mixture forms a smooth dough.
- Press dough into whatever your desired shape onto a cookie sheet to a 1/4 inch thickness.
- Refrigerate for 1 hour minimum and up to 24 hours in advance
- Preheat oven to 350 F with a rack in the middle position.
- Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Time will vary based on size and shape of your crust. You will know that the crust is done when the top of the crust looks dry, and the edges have started to brown slightly.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the pan for 5 minutes.
- Remove to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Place all ingredients into a large bowl.
- Beat at a low speed until powdered sugar is incorporated.
- Increase speed to medium-high and beat until mixture is light and fluffy.
- Spread in a thin layer over your cookie crust.
- Decorate your cookie pizza as desired with desired toppings.
- If desired, you can give your fruit extra shine with this glaze
- Heat in a small saucepan over low heat the apricot jam and the water
- Mix completely and heat until a nice loose consistency
- Strain through a fine mesh sieve to remove any chunks of apricot
- Use a pastry brush to lightly paint the glaze onto the fruit
Make Ahead Instructions
The cookie crust can be made ahead up to 3 days in advance. Make sure to store in an airtight container until needed.
Making the frost, and decorating should be done on the day you plan to consume the cookie pizza., but can be done up to 24 hours in advance and then stored in the fridge.
