Fruit Pizza Tarts

Growing up my sister would always ask for fruit pizza for her birthday instead of a cake. Fruit Pizza is sugar cookie dough topped with cream cheese frosting and then finished with your favorite fruits. This past weekend my sister and I had a Halloween party and the snacks were all finger foods. I thought of making mini fruit pizzas and putting them into muffin tins. After tweaking the recipe and simplifying ingredients, I came up with these bite size delights. These are very customizable since you can put whatever type of fruit on them that you like.

(I made these at my sister's apartment, sorry about the picture quality.  I took them all with my iPhone, so the lighting may be off.)

Ingredients

• 2 packages premade sugar cookie tubes (cut and bake)
• 1 package of Neufchatel Cheese (1/3 less fat cream cheese, look for it with the cream cheese)
• 2 cups of powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1/2 stick of light butter
• 1 tub of light frozen whipped topping (thawed)
• Fruit of your choice. I used:
• 1 quart of strawberries
• 1 pint of blackberries
• 1 small can of mandarin oranges

Directions

1.  Set the cookie dough, neufchatel cheese, and butter out to start warming to room temperature. 
2. Take a small amount of the dough (approximately 1 1/2 inches or so) roll into a ball and then flatten it out so that it is relatively thin (if it is too thick the tart will just have more cookie and less room for filling). 

The rolled cookie dough

My sister decided to get in the Halloween mood with this dough by making a skeleton face.

The flattened cookie dough, I used my hands, but a rolling pin would work.

3. Spray the muffin tins with cooking. Take the flattened out cookie dough and put it into the muffin tin. If need be cut the edges so that the tarts lay flat. 

A butter knife can just be taken around the edges to even the dough.

3. Gently roll the edges of the dough into the cup to prevent the dough from sticking to the top side edges of the tin. 

Gently roll the edges of the tarts inwards, this allows the tarts to come out of the pan easier.

4. Bake for the shortest time recommended on the cookie dough package. (I cooked mine for 7 minutes at 325*).

The tarts will come out of the oven very puffy, so don't worry.

5. After baked, let the tarts cool in the pan.  Make sure to cool completely. 

This tart turned out a little thick, so initially thinner is better and will make the final tart lighter.

6. For the frosting, cream together the Neufchatel cheese and butter with an electric or hand mixer.

Cream the butter and Neufchatel together evenly.

7. Add the vanilla and mix together with the frosting.
8. Slowly add the powdered sugar while mixing on low.
9. Once the frosting is mixed, fold in the entire container of whipped topping and put into a quart size bag. When ready to fill the tarts cut the corner of the bag to easily allow you to fill the tarts. 

Make sure to fold in the whipped topping, otherwise it can lose its shape.

Putting the filling into a bag makes it really easy to fill each cup without the mess.

10. Fill the cups 3/4 (or more) full with the cream cheese frosting/whipped topping.

You could add some food coloring to the filling to make these really festive for any holiday.

11. Add the desired amount of fruit to each cup.

Choose which ever fruit to fill the cups with. These have fall colors, so they were perfect.

 

Makes about 24 cups

I was out of town so Greta was not in the Kitchen with me, but I have many pictures of here to share.