Fruit pizza is such a versatile thing. It’s like a blank canvas where you can mix and match different fruits, flavors, and colors. This strawberry-mint pizza features strawberries, chopped mint, and cream cheese frosting infused with lime juice and lime zest, all on top of a scrumptious sugar cookie crust. It’s a fresh, delicious, and beautiful dessert, like a taste of spring.
It is teacher appreciation week at my kids’ school, and I am helping out with bringing food in to the teachers to make their week special. Fruit pizza is one of the things I took in this week, and this strawberry-mint fruit pizza recipe I am sharing here is the happy product of some experiments in the kitchen the past couple of days. My kids really loved this version, and they were glad I made one to keep at home and didn’t give everything to the teachers. 🙂 (Though teachers do deserve lots of appreciation–that is such an important job!)
It is not yet strawberry season here, but it will be before we know it, so I wanted to make something that felt like spring. We do have mint growing rampantly in our garden already, and I really like the combination of strawberry and mint. For the cream cheese frosting, I also wanted to liven it up a bit, and so I adapted a recipe for lime cream cheese frosting from one I found on Food52, who got it from Two Red Bowls. This frosting is so easy to make, and it has such a nice, subtly zingy flavor from the lime. The cookie crust recipe I adapted from Sally’s Baking Addiction, and this crust is delicious.
One of my favorite parts about making this strawberry-mint pizza was going out into our garden and picking the mint leaves. Such a treat, and a hint of what’s to come as more things start to grow. Of course the possibilities are endless as far as fruit pizzas go, but this combination is really refreshing and tasty, not to mention very pretty!
I hope you all have a great weekend, and if you are celebrating Mother’s Day, I hope you have a very special day.
Fiesta Friday is co-hosted this week by Kaila @ GF Life 24/7 and Laurena @ Life Diet Health. I look forward to checking out the fiesta!
Strawberry-Mint Pizza With a Hint of Lime
For the crust:
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup of unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 3/4 cup of granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 1 and 1/2 cups of all-purpose unbleached flour
- 1 teaspoon of baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon of salt
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of cornstarch
Directions:
In a large mixing bowl, beat (or stir vigorously) the butter till fluffy. Stir in the sugar and beat or stir again, until creamy. Add the egg and the vanilla and beat or stir again, until creamy and all the ingredients are mixed together (any clumps of butter need to be incorporated into the batter).
In a small mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and corn starch. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ones, carefully beating/stirring until the batter is all combined to form a dough. Cover with plastic wrap and chill the dough in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. After the dough has chilled, spread it out gently with your fingers onto a lightly greased 12-inch pizza pan. If you don’t have one (like me), you can use a regular cookie sheet, and just shape the dough into a circle on that. Press it gently down so it is evenly distributed. Bake in your 350 degree oven for about 18-20 minutes, or till the crust is just lightly browned. You don’t want to over-bake it. Remove the crust from the oven and allow it to cool completely before continuing. (Your can work on your frosting and chopping the fruit while the dough is chilling and also while the crust is cooling.)
The recipe for the crust is adapted from Sally’s Baking Addiction.
For the frosting:
Ingredients:
- 4 ounces of cream cheese, softened (low-fat versions do not work well for this frosting)
- 1 tablespoon of butter, at room temperature
- 1 and 1/2 cups of confectioner’s sugar
- 1-3 teaspoons of lime juice, depending on your preference, and depending on the desired thickness of the frosting
- 1 teaspoon of lime zest
Directions:
If you are using an electric mixer, combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and beat until all is smooth and fluffy, adding the lime juice as needed.
If you are using a hand mixer (I love using a hand mixer), cream the cream cheese and butter together first. It makes is much easier if the cream cheese and butter are very soft. Add the confectioner’s sugar 1/2 cup at a time, mixing after each addition. Finally, beat in the lime zest and lime juice as desired, till the frosting is light and fluffy. If it’s too watery, add more sugar. If it’s too thick, add more lime juice till it’s the texture you like.
The recipe for this frosting is adapted from Food52 via Two Red Bowls.
For the strawberries and mint:
Ingredients:
- 1 pound of fresh strawberries, washed and sliced
- a handful of fresh mint leaves, washed and finely chopped
Directions:
When the crust is baked and cooled and the frosting is made, spread the frosting evenly over the crust, leaving a small rim around the pizza that is unfrosted. Place the chopped strawberries and mint all over the top of the pizza, as much or as little of the toppings as you like. Slice and serve. Enjoy!
Leftovers will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
To plan ahead, you can make the crust and frosting a day in advance. Just cover the crust with plastic wrap and store the frosting in the refrigerator. Chop the fruit and assemble the pizza the next day.
I adapted this recipe from one I found in the May/June issue of Victoria magazine. I find that magazine so inspiring, with its beautiful photographs and stories about women who follow their dreams. I only changed a few things in my recipe–I used orange carrots instead of white, and used baby beets instead of Chioggia beets. Also, I used white wine vinegar instead of Champagne vinegar, and my cooking time ended up taking a few minutes longer.
I find that I really enjoy working with vegetables. As I was peeling the skin off of the onions, I was thinking, you can’t really be in a rush to do this job….but then I realized how often I am in a rush–either in a true hurry to get somewhere on time, or a self-imposed rush to get more and more done. I let go of that feeling for a few minutes and peeled the onions, noticing their smell and their texture, and paid attention to the pretty pink hues of the beets and radishes as I washed them. I noticed that the beet stems look like roses. That the stripes in the beets are amazing. In the middle of a day and evening full of obligations and schedules, there was a window of time when I was present with the beauty of nature.
I am still working on posting some meals that can be ready quickly, or made ahead of time to be eaten when hungry people get home from soccer games and track meets….That is also part of my family’s reality. But for today, I am sharing a recipe that gave me a meditation with the vegetables, and made me feel more in touch with our beautiful earth (and with myself too). If you have a 20 minute window of time (plus about 25 minutes for while the vegetables roast), I highly recommend it. I hope you all have a great weekend! This week,
This recipe is adapted from a favorite orange walnut bread recipe in one of the many cookbooks I have collected from various churches over the years. Once I got started making the bread, I realized I didn’t have the orange juice the recipe called for. I also didn’t have enough walnuts. My husband suggested I use lemonade instead of the orange juice, and I used a combination of walnuts and pecans. The bread turned out great! I actually like it better than the traditional orange walnut bread. The lemonade gives it a sunny flavor and such a pretty, delicate color.
The making of this bread helped soothe my nerves. I made it a day or so before my daughter was to leave on her overnight class trip to Chicago. I know she loves this bread, and making it for her made me feel like I was giving her an extra hug before she waved goodbye and hopped on the bus. It is true that food can express love in ways that words sometimes cannot. I look forward to hearing all about her trip when she gets back!
Meanwhile, spring marches on with warm days and cold days, bright sun, rain, and wind. The key is to dress in layers, since it changes so quickly! The scene around us is becoming more colorful by the day. After the browns and grays of winter, it feels good to see such bright colors. Our cherry trees are starting to blossom! Bright yellow dandelions decorate bright green grass. I hope you are all having a great week!
