Jun 1, 2011

Strawberry Pizza


     Strawberry season is in full swing here in New England. The weather has been warm and the berry plants are full of fruit. My mother-in-law has a few signature recipes. This strawberry pizza is one of them. As soon as the beautiful, red berries begin to show up on the supermarket shelves I start thinking about this strawberry pizza.
      The pizza crust is a crisp, shortbread cookie. It is spread with a layer of sweetened cream cheese and a strawberry glaze and topped with sliced fresh strawberries. I'm salivating as I type up this description. This pizza looks pretty, tastes great and is relatively simple to prepare. Try it for your next gathering and I'm sure you will be pleased.






Strawberry Pizza
source: Leslie Brown; aka The BEST mother-in-law around

Crust:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 stick of salted butter, cold and cut into small pieces

Cream Cheese "Sauce":
1 (8 oz.) cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar 
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

Topping:
1 cup mashed fresh strawberries
1/4 - 1/2 cup granulated sugar, depending on the sweetness of the berries





1 tablespoon cornstarch
8-10 strawberries, sliced thin
Crust:
In a food processor or medium bowl cut in flour, sugar and cold butter. Until mixture forms a dough. Form into a ball with your hands and press into an ungreased pizza pan. Crust should be approximately 12-14 inches in diameter.  
Bake at 350º F for 15 minutes until just golden on top.  Cool completely.
Cream Cheese Sauce:
In a medium bowl, combine cream cheese, vanilla, sugar and lemon juice.  Spread on cooled crust.
Topping:
In a saucepan over medium heat, combine strawberries, sugar. In a small bowl mix 1 tablespoon cornstarch with 1 tablespoon cold water and whisk until smooth. Add cornstarch slurry to strawberry mixture and bring to a boil.  Simmer until thick and glossy.  Cool.  Spread on top of cream cheese filling.
Slice fresh strawberries and lay on top of strawberry sauce. Chill and serve.

5 comments:

Leymaster Family said...

I made this today wiht my fresh picked strawberries! So tasty! I loved that it wasn't too sweet. I hear you have a yummy frozen yogurt recipe. Can you post it soon! Thanks for all the yummy recipes!

Unknown said...

I am making this today and was disappointed to see the cream cheese sauce did not did not include the sugar, but included sugar in the direction. So after putting on the crust I had to take it off & I added 1/2 cup powdered sugar and redid.
Also how do you mash the strawberries to get the topping so clear?

Heather said...

I updated the recipe to include the amount of sugar in the ingredients section for the cream cheese sauce. Sorry about that.

djsuejon said...

Is that the right amounts for crust..1 c flour, 1/4c icing sugar,1/2 c butter? Mine still looks like flour?

Hez said...

djsuejon - I double checked the recipe and the crust ingredients are recorded correctly. The "dough" should look like wet sand and it will patted into the pan to make a shortbread-like crust.