4th of July Fruit Pizza

This 4th of July fruit pizza has an easy sugar cookie crust, creamy cheesecake topping, and a burst of fresh berries. This patriotic dessert is as delicious as it is festive and is perfect for any July 4th, Memorial Day, or summer gathering. You can make it traditionally with all-purpose flour, but I’ve also tested it with two brands of gluten-free flour.

Don’t want to turn on the oven but like the sound of cheesecake-like topping and red and blue fruit for the Fourth of July? Try this Red White and Blue Cheesecake Salad. It’s very similar to this recipe but without the crust.

However, I think this recipe is really worth the 15 minutes of baking time. When eating some desserts that have a crust, I sometimes find myself only wanting to eat the topping.

Definitely not with this recipe (or any other of mine 😉).

I love the crust just as much as the cheesecake topping. So did all of my taste testers.

We all decided this was the new go-to summer recipe. It’s so incredibly easy and makes great use of summer fruit.

We had one yesterday for Mother’s Day, and I’m already looking for an excuse to make another.

Easy to decorate!

This is a fantastic dessert option if you’re like me and not good at decorating cakes and cookies! It’s easy to make look elegant, and you don’t need any decorating skills.

Start by making a circle of strawberries around the edge of the fruit pizza. Then, make the star in the middle.

Now, you know how to space the circle of blueberries and the inner circle of strawberries.

The crust

The crust is adapted from my Cheesecake Cookie Cups recipe. After trying 4 or 5 other crusts as a base, I remembered that recipe and figured it’d make for a good crust.

I made it as written, and it was too cakey and crumbly. Just like most of my other failed attempts.

So, I added more butter the second time, transforming it into a perfectly chewy, not-at-all-cakey, nor crumbly sugar cookie crust. The extra butter also helped the crust stand up better to the cheesecake topping.

The topping

It’s similar to cream cheese frosting, but you beat in 1/3 cup of heavy cream to lighten it up a bit. I find this much better for a fruit pizza than pure cream cheese frosting.

You can use 1/2 cup of heavy cream if you want the topping even lighter.

If you don’t have any on hand, this Fruit Pizza recipe uses marshmallow fluff and Cool Whip to lighten the topping.

Ingredients

Here’s what you need. I go into more detail about most of the ingredients throughout the post.

Can I use store-bought sugar cookie dough?

You can! You’d need 1 pound (453 grams) of dough. The homemade recipe below yields 523 grams of dough, so a little more than 1 pound is fine.

But I wouldn’t use less than a pound.

Can I reduce the sweetener?

You could reduce it by a little in the topping. I wouldn’t mess with the crust.

Doing so would probably result in a crumbly crust that’s difficult to cut without making a massive mess.

Can I use different sweeteners?

As much as I’d love to sweeten everything with honey or maple syrup, it wouldn’t work in this recipe. I’m guessing the baked crust would be like a weird cakey cookie, absorbing moisture from the topping and getting soggy.

It’d also make the topping much too runny. Which you definitely don’t want to use to top off a cookie crust.

This means a liquid sweetener won’t work. Coconut sugar would not result in a tasty crust or topping.

I haven’t tried any keto sweeteners because the flour isn’t keto, and there’s no keto sub for the flour, so I have no idea if keto sweeteners would work here.

To actually give you an answer – please use granulated sugar in the crust and powdered sugar for the topping. This is what I’ve tested, and I know it works perfectly. 🙂

How to make it

These photos are here just give you an overview. To get the full recipe, scroll down to the recipe card.

If you don’t feel like reading the text on the collages, you basically just make sugar cookie dough.

Then, press it into a pan and bake. While it’s baking, prepare the topping.

Spread it over the cooled crust and decorate.

Don’t want lemon in the crust?

Then you can use 1 teaspoon almond extract + 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract in place of the 1 1/2 teaspoons of lemon extract and omit the lemon zest.

Almond extract with blueberries and strawberries is a fantastic combination. If you choose different fruit, be mindful if lemon or almond pairs well with your chosen fruit.

Almond extract is great with any kind of stone fruit and berries. But I wouldn’t pair it with kiwi, pineapple, mardarin or grapes.

Other fruit ideas

In addition to strawberries and blueberries, you can add a variety of other fruit to your July 4th fruit pizza.

• Raspberries, blackberries and cherries would be good for a red, white and blue theme.
• If you don’t care about the color, try sliced kiwi, sliced peaches, pineapple chunks, mandarin slices, or even grapes.

And should you have any leftover fruit, making these Fruit Tartlets would be an excellent choice and are also perfect for Independence Day!

Fruit to avoid

Bananas brown so quickly. If you brush them with lemon juice and then immediately serve, it’d be fine. If not serving immediately, I don’t recommend it.

While you technically can put melon on a fruit pizza, it’s not recommended. Melon, especially watermelon, has a high water content, making the pizza soggy and affecting its overall texture.

Additionally, the flavor and texture of melon may not complement the other fruits and toppings as well as berries or other firmer fruits. If you do choose to include melon, it’s best to use it sparingly and ensure it’s diced into small pieces to minimize its impact on the pizza’s texture.

Do I have to chill the dough?

No, but it makes it easier to pat into the pizza pan. It’s quite sticky right after mixing.

If you’re in a hurry, you can put the ball of dough on a piece of plastic wrap, cover it, and then flatten it into a disc.

Then place it in the freezer for 15-20 minutes. But not much longer or else it’ll be too firm to handle. If that happens, just let it sit at room temperature for a few minutes.

Do I have to use a pizza pan?

Definitely not! You can press it into a circle on a parchment-lined baking sheet. It’s easier to use a pizza pan because it’s the perfect guide for your circle. Make sure not to use a pizza pan with little holes in it.

They’re great for pizza but not so much for making a buttery cookie crust.

Make ahead and how to store

You can make the sugar cookie dough up to 3 days in advance. Just keep it refrigerated until ready to use.

You can also freeze it and use it within 3 months.

The topping can be made 3 days in advance and kept refrigerated until the day of serving.

I recommend putting on the topping and fruit on the day of serving for the best results.

If you have leftover fruit pizza, I recommend cutting it into slices and storing it in an airtight container. I think that’s easier than covering it with plastic wrap.

How to transport

Fruit pizzas are perfect for BBQs and picnics! The crust is firm and thick enough to transfer from the pizza pan to a cake carrier easily. If you have one of those, that’d be great to transfer the fruit pizza in.

The topping doesn’t harden, so if you place plastic wrap on top of the topping (rather than the fruit), the topping will stick to it. With the way I decorated the tart, there aren’t areas where the plastic wrap would fall on the topping except around the edges.

That’s kind of impossible to avoid. If you don’t have a cake carrier, or a pan or something you can just cover with plastic wrap, then you could assemble the fruit tart wherever the party is happening.

Gluten-free option

I tried this with two brands of 1:1 gluten-free baking blends.

My favorite was King Arthur Flour Gluten-free Measure for Measure Flour. The texture was just like the all-purpose flour version.

The runner-up was Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 Gluten-free Baking Flour. You could tell this one wasn’t made with all-purpose flour as there was a tiny bit of sandiness to it. But everyone still loved it!

If you don’t have access to either of those brands (they’re easy to get on Amazon!), you have to use a type of flour that’s meant as a 1-to-1 substitute for all-purpose flour. That means no almond flour, coconut flour, buckwheat, oat flour, rice flour, etc., as those aren’t interchangeable with all-purpose flour.

I’m not sure how other brands would work out because I haven’t tried them. But if you try another brand of gluten-free baking flour, I’d love to hear how it came out below in the comments!

If you can’t have grains, perhaps the dough in these Almond Sugar Cookies would work as a base. It yields 738 grams of dough, so you’d only want to use about 2/3 of it. The rest you can bake up as cookies!

But I haven’t tested this idea, so I’m not 100% sure if it’d work out well. And for another tasty July 4th dessert, try these Patriotic Trifles, which also have a gluten-free option!

Don’t live in the US?

You might be wondering why someone not in the US would want to make a 4th of July fruit pizza. And the answer is that expats like me also enjoy desserts for July 4th. 🙂

Feel free to skip this section if you live in the US or Canada! It’s just for the rest of the world.

If you’re located outside the US or Canada, chances are you have cream cheese packaged in small tubs meant for spreading on toast rather than the brick-style variety sold in North America. Here’s what you’ll need to do:

For the 8 ounces (225 grams) of cream cheese called for in this recipe, buy a 300-gram package of cream cheese. Store-brand options from Aldi, Lidl, etc., work just as well as Philadelphia brand.

Place the cream cheese in the center of a clean tea towel or cheesecloth (not merely a paper towel), and gently squeeze out the excess liquid until you have 225 grams of cream cheese.

If you skip this step, your topping WILL be too runny, and your crust will be soggy.

Now that you know this trick, you can also make these red white and blue bars!

So that’s it! I hope you’ll enjoy this Fourth of July fruit pizza if you try it! I’d love to hear how it worked out in the comments. Thank you! 🙂

5 from 20 votes

4th of July Fruit Pizza

Author Erin Dooner

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Servings 8

Print Recipe

Pin Recipe

Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

This 4th of July Fruit Pizza has an easy sugar cookie crust, cheeseecake topping and berries on top.

Ingredients

For the crust:

• ▢ 1 1/2 cups (188 grams) all-purpose flour or for gluten-free, see notes
• ▢ 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ▢ 1/4 teaspoon salt (I used 1/2 teaspoon fine Himalayan pink salt)
• ▢ 1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, softened
• ▢ 3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated sugar
• ▢ 2 teaspoons lemon zest
• ▢ 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon extract
• ▢ 1 large egg (50 grams, out of shell) room temp

For the cheesecake topping:

• ▢ 8 oz (225 grams) cream cheese* room temp
• ▢ 1 1/3 cups (160 grams) powdered sugar
• ▢ 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ▢ pinch of salt
• ▢ 1/3 cup (80 ml) heavy cream cold

For decoration:

• ▢ 1 pound (453 grams) strawberries - you need 20-26 small or medium strawberries, which is 11oz / 312 grams
• ▢ 6 oz (170 grams) blueberries - you need 52-57 blueberries, which is 155 grams / 5.4 oz

Instructions

Before beginning:

• Rinse and lay the berries out on paper towels so that they’ll dry. Place some paper towels on top to really soak up any water. This will prevent the topping from getting runny.

Make the crust:

• In a medium mixing bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
• In a large mixing bowl using a stand mixer or electric hand mixer, beat the butter and sugar at medium speed until well combined.
• Beat in the lemon zest, lemon extract, and egg until incorporated.
• Gradually add in the flour mixture on low speed. Beat just until combined.
• Cover the bowl and chill for 1 hour. You can make and refrigerate it for up to 3 days in advance. If chilling longer than an hour, you'll need to let it sit at room temp until soft enough to handle. You can also freeze it and use it within 3 months. Then thaw overnight in the freeze.
• Preheat the oven to 350 °F (175 °C). Grease a 12” (30.5 cm) pizza pan (don't use one with holes). If you don’t have one, you can use a piece of parchment paper on a baking tray.
• Press the chilled dough into the prepared pan to form a 10” (25.4 cm) circle.
• Bake for 15-18 minutes or until the crust has lightly browned.
• Remove to a wire rack to cool completely - about 1 hour.

Make the topping:

• In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla, and salt using an electric hand mixer or stand mixer at medium speed until completely combined.
• While still mixing, now on low, gradually add the heavy cream.
• Once it’s well incorporated, turn the speed to high and beat until stiff peaks form - about 2 to 5 minutes. The topping can be made 3 days in advance and kept refrigerated until the day of serving.

Decorate:

• On the day of serving, spread the topping over the cooled crust.
• Place the fruit over the topping into whatever pattern you'd like.
• Serve within 12 hours for best results. The crust doesn't get soggy, but will be a little softer after the first day. Also, the fruit won't look as nice and certain fruit might bleed a little bit.

How to store:

• Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 3 days. The topping doesn't harden, so the plastic wrap will stick to it around the edge of the fruit pizza. It's best to place the fruit tart in a cake carrier, large pan, etc., and then cover the pan with plastic wrap.

Notes

• For a gluten-free version, use 1 1/2 cups (188 grams) King Arthur Flour Gluten-free Measure for Measure Flour or 1 1/2 cups (207 grams) Bob's Red Mill 1-to-1 Gluten-free Baking Flour.
• If you're located outside the US or Canada, chances are you have cream cheese packaged in small tubs meant for spreading on toast, rather than the brick-style variety sold in North America. Here's what you'll need to do: for the 8 ounces (225 grams) of cream cheese required for this recipe, purchase a 300-gram package of cream cheese. Store-brand options from Aldi, Lidl, etc., work just as well as Philadelphia brand. Place the cream cheese in the center of a clean tea towel or cheesecloth (not merely a paper towel), and gently squeeze out the excess liquid until you have 225 grams of cream cheese.

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