Fruit Pizza

The Beats! 

Hokay, so ... I've always been a big Natalie Merchant fan.  If we were playing the game "If you could have any fill in the blank (in this case we're using voice) you wanted, whose would you choose?",  I would choose Natalie Merchant's voice.  It's soft, and deep, and almost haunting.  Which is why I used her for the soundtrack to one of my High School English presentations.  Maybe they will listen to her instead of me, right?  Last year she released her first album in several years and I fell in love with it's odd lyrics and sound.  In Leave Your Sleep, Merchant has adapted children's rhymes and lullabies, some well over a hundred years old, into songs.  Some of the included poets are Robert Graves, Edward Lear, Ogden Nash, and Robert Louis Stevenson (I don't really know my poets, but these guys sound important).  Bleezer's IceCream is one of my favorites (you can't really go wrong singing about ice cream) as well as The Adventures of Isabel (it reminds me of one of my favorite friends that I don't get to see often enough).  Since buying the album I've decided that if I ever have kids this is what they will spend the first year of their life listening to ... I figure we can transition into Weezy and the gang later at a more appropriate age, around year 3 or so. 

   

 

The Treats!  

    

Fruit pizza screams summer to me.  Well maybe not screams,  but it implies summer to me.  And since Seattle seems to be struggling with the concept of summer I thought it might like a subtle reminder.  I made this yesterday and this morning it's ... gray, windy, chilly, and looking like October.  Ohhh well, it's a fun, easy, and quick recipe anyway.  I only ran into one road block when I realized I had used up all my baking soda in an attempt to absorb some of the smell wafting from my soggy mountaineering boots after too many trips into the snow covered peaks.  This came with the realization that no kitchen goddess would ever use the last of her baking soda to try to erase a stench from mountaineering boots.  Fail.  I substituted in 3 times the amount with baking powder but I think it led to a slightly crispier cookie that I would have avoided otherwise.  And my boots still smell.  But it's probably not good to talk too much about bad smells when you're introducing a recipe so ... you have a couple of choices here.  You can make one big pizza or like I did, split them up into "individual" pizzas.  I ended up making four plate sized cookies, which might be a little much when you're talking about a dessert ... but not really.  The most important part is to have fun decorating with fruit.  If you're a nerd like me, it becomes like Tessellations, one of those math games where you must fit the geometrical shapes together.  Maybe that's the enginerd side of me coming out.  The point is, make it pretty.  Ok, go.

Fruit Pizza   (makes 6+ servings)              

From a variety of sources combined ...

What you'll need ...

Dough:
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cups all-porpoise flour
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Icing:
1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla

Toppings:
Several cups of fresh, sliced fruit - kiwi, berries, peaches, etc.
1/2 cup apricot or apply jelly (for glaze, opt.)
1 Tablespoon of water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a large bowl, cream together butter and 3/4 cup sugar until smooth.  Mix in egg.  Combine flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt; stir into creamed mixture until just blended.  I also added a tiny bit of almond extract.  Press dough into ungreased pizza pan (although in retrospect, I would recommend greasing it).

Bake in preheated oven 8 to 10 minutes, or until lightly browned.  Cool (this is a command, i'm not just saying "cool").  In a large bowl, beat cream cheese with 1/2 cup sugar and vanilla until light.  Spread on cooled crust.

Arrange desired fruit on top of filling.  If you want a nice shine on your fruit, heat 1/2 cup jelly with 1 Tablespoon of water until almost boiling, stir, and glaze onto fruit with pastry brush.  I prefer using apple jelly to apricot jam so you don't have to filter out the apricot chunks.  Chill (you and the fruit pizza) until ready to serve.