Lofthouse Style Sugar Cookies and Fruit Pizzas

Justin and I were going to a friends house for dinner and games last night. We offered to bring dessert and decided on fruit pizza, individual ones, for each person. I spent about 20 minutes searching for the perfect fruit pizza recipes and then decided to work one together from other recipes online. Here is the result!

First, I found this website, with the PERFECT Sugar cookies. You know those cookies you can buy at the grocery store, Lofthouse Sugar cookies. They are the ones that are always soft and yummy frosting on top...Yeah the ones pictured on here. They are amazing, and yummy and oh, so delicious. Anyway, the link above has an amazing copycat recipe that is worth the time. I have trimmed down some of her comments in the directions and pasted the result here. Hope you enjoy!

Super Soft Sugar Cookies

1 Cup Crisco
1 Cup Sugar

1 Egg
1 tsp. Vanilla
1 tsp. Almond Extract

1 cup Whipping Cream

1 tsp. Baking Soda
1 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
About 5 cups Flour

(Kitchenaid mixer works well for this recipe) Using the whisk attachment Cream together the sugar and Crisco really well- run the mixer for a good 7-10 minutes. Add the egg, vanilla and almond and mix for another minute or two. Add the whipping cream and beat the mixture until it becomes fluffy about 3-5 more minutes.

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients.

Change your mixer attachment from the whisk to the paddle and get all the dry ingredients incorporated. The dough will not be as thick as regular cookie dough.

Use a 1 inch cookie dough scoop to roll out the dough into 1- 1 ½ inch balls. Smooth out all edges and then place on the cookie sheet and flatten them, keeping edges smooth.  

Bake at 350 degrees for 8-9 minutes. You do not want them to brown. 8 minutes came out perfectly in my oven.

Cool while the next batch of cookies is in the oven. When the next batch is about to come out, move cookies to a cooling rack and roll out and flatten the next batch of cookies.

To store, place in a plastic container or zipper bag.

Yields about 24 cookies. (I got 46 out of the recipe – depending on size you roll them)

 Now, on to the fruit pizza side of things. I searched for the perfect recipe for the 'pizza sauce' for these fruit pizzas. I found this site and worked with those ingredients, but modified the amounts. So here is my Fruit Pizza Sauce recipe!

2 8-oz packages Cream Cheese

1 cup Sugar

2 teaspoons (+) Vanilla

about 12 ounces of Cool Whip

1/2 can of crushed pineapple

Cream together Cream cheese, sugar and vanilla. Fold in Cool Whip and crushed pineapple. Refrigerate for a couple hours to allow it to re-thicken a little bit. 

So you take your cooled Supersoft sugar cookie, top it with some yummy refrigerated Fruit pizza sauce and then top that with your favorite cut up fruit. We used Strawberries, raspberries, grapes and kiwi. Mandarin oranges are also great, along with blueberries and any other fruit. 

This was a huge hit for dessert. The kids LOVED it. They keep wanting more. The Fruit pizza sauce also works great as a fruit dip. All in all, its a great dessert!