Red, White & Blueberry Dessert Pizza for the Fourth

Directions

• This recipe makes enough for two fruit pizzas. See notes below for tips if you don’t want to make two pizzas at once. Start by making the dough for the pizza crust. In the bowl of a stand mixer, add warm milk and yeast. Stir to combine.
• Add in sugar, eggs, egg yolk and melted butter. Mix until well combined.
• Next, stir in flour and salt until a dough begins to form.
• Add the orange zest and then mix with a dough hook on low for 8 mins.
• Push dough to the side, add in a little olive oil, roll the dough in the oil, cover and let it rise for 1-2 hours, until it’s doubled in size. I find that adding any citrus zest to a dough will result in a dough that doesn’t rise as much as it would without the zest, so this is to be expected. I usually give this dough a good 2 hour first rise. It should look something like this:
• While the dough is rising, make the strawberry compote. Hull and roughly chop your strawberries.
• Add the strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice to a heavy-bottomed saucepan and place over medium heat. Stir frequently until the mixture starts to bubble. As the strawberries soften, use the back of a spoon to mash them down. Turn the heat to medium low and allow the mixture to continue to simmer and thicken, as you stir and mash the strawberries. You could use an immersion blender (in a stainless steel pot), but I didn’t find that I needed to. After 20-30 mins, you should have a thick strawberry sauce that’s fairly consistent, but may have a few lumps here and there. When it’s done, set it aside to cool.
• Once the dough has risen, remove it from the bowl and place it on a lightly floured surface.
• Cut the dough into two equal pieces. This recipe makes enough for two pizza crusts.
• Roll out one of the dough sections into a circle of about 16 inches in diameter. You can wrap the other dough section and refrigerate or freeze it to use later, or keep it covered and make the second pizza simultaneously. Just be sure to bake the pizza crusts one at a time.
• Cover the dough and let it rise a second time for 30 mins. It won’t puff up too much, but I do like to give it a second rise.
• Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F, set a rack in the upper 1/3 of your oven, and line a full rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
• After the second rise, brush the dough with 1 tbsp of melted butter.
• Using a fork, press lightly into the dough, but avoid the outer edge. You want to leave about an inch of crust with no fork holes.
• Lightly dust the dough with cinnamon sugar.
• Place into the preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes. I like to turn the pan once at around 15 minutes. The pizza crust will slightly brown while baking, especially at the edges.
• While the pizza crust is baking, make the cream cheese frosting. Add the softened butter and cream cheese to the bowl of a stand mixer and mix at medium high with the paddle attachment until it’s completely smooth and combined. Add the powdered sugar and pinch of salt and start to mix slowly. Once the powdered sugar is incorporated, increase the speed and mix on medium high until the frosting is smooth. Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a round piping tip. The frosting will go on after the strawberry sauce.
• After the dough has cooled a bit, add half of the strawberry compote and spread it evenly around, leaving the crust without sauce. Reserve the rest of the compote for the second pizza.
• Next, pipe on the frosting. You can do this however you like, I kept it simple. You want to use half of the frosting here.
• Dust lightly with powdered sugar. I add 1/4 tsp of vanilla powdered sugar to a mesh sieve and use that to dust it evenly over the pizza. I like to add the powdered sugar before I add the fruit. It will mostly just show on the crust and will be absorbed into the sauce and frosting, so concentrate on the crust area.
• Add your favorite fruit toppings. You can make a pattern, or place the fruit on at random. I used sliced strawberries, sliced kiwis, and blueberries. April in MA is early for seasonal fruit, so as we progress into the summer months, I will be making this with local seasonal fruit whenever possible!
• Add a little bit of whipped cream to the center of the pizza and serve extra whipped cream on the side. I made a fresh whipped cream for this. See notes below for the recipe.
• If you’re making both pizzas at once, I recommend rolling out both sections of dough and allowing them to do the second rise at the same time. The second dough can continue its second rise while the first one bakes. Just before taking the first pizza crust from the oven, you can brush the second dough with the other tablespoon of melted butter, following steps 13-16. Once both fruit pizza crusts have baked, you can then top them at the same time.
• Cut the pizza into equal pieces for serving. I cut mine into 10 pieces. Serve with extra fruit and whipped cream on the side and enjoy!