I’m on a bit of a sandwich cookie bender. Shortbread with dulce de leche, whoopie pies with cookies and cream frosting, and now, fruit pizza, sandwich cookie style. The idea has been floating around in my head for a bit but I was really inspired to try it after eating it at a friend’s house and seeing other verions pop up around the web. So a taste-testing I went.
Classic fruit pizza is composed of sugar cookie dough, a cream cheese frosting and cut up fruit, which adds color and convinces you it’s healthy enough to gorge on, am I right? I considered using sugar cookies for the sandwiches but didn’t think I could really sink my teeth into them without the filling squeezing out the sides. No one wants that. Instead, I paired a dense, chewy, vanilla-y vanilla whoopie pie cookies with the cream cheese frosting and cut up fruit. Yum. Just yum.
If cream cheese frosting isn’t your thing, I did make a few with my favorite vanilla frosting and it is pretty darn delightful as well.
Ingredients
- 1 cup sugar
- 11 Tbsp butter, softened
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 Tbsp vanilla
- 1/4 tsp almond extract
- 2 large eggs
- 3 cups flour
- 2/3 cup milk
- 1-8oz pkg plain cream cheese, softened
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1/4 tsp vanilla
- 3/4 cup powdered sugar
- 2 Tbsp brown sugar, optional (for a richer taste)
- (Not a fan of cream cheese frosting? I like this vanilla frosting too)
- strawberries
- raspberries
- blueberries
- blackberries
- pineapple
- kiwi
- mandarin oranges
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until creamy.
- Add in the baking power, salt and vanilla and almond extract. Beat until fully incorporated.
- Add in the eggs, one at a time. Beat it well and scrape the bowl after each egg.
- Finally, add the flour and milk, alternating, beginning with the flour (1 cup flour, 1/3 cup milk, 1 cup flour, 1/3 cup milk, 1 cup flour). Make sure to beat the batter well after each addition. The batter should be thick and fluffy.
- Scoop out the batter onto parchment-covered (or greased) baking sheets. The tablespoon cookie scoop is ideal for this. Space the scoops about 2" apart.
- Bake the cookies at 400F for 7-8 minutes, until the cookies are spongy.
- Remove them from the oven, letting them cool on the pan or on a cooling rack
- Beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla together until fluffy.
- Gradually add the powdered and brown sugar. Beat until just combined.
- Take the vanilla cookies and spread a layer of frosting.
- Add cut up fruit to half of the cookies.
- Top the fruit-covered cookies with the just-frosted ones.
- Eat.
- Lots.
