Fresh-Fruit Pizza with Lemon Curd

Fresh-Fruit with Lemon Curd
The lemon curd not only holds the fruit in place, it serves as an exquisite anchor for all the flavors. You may have never imagined such a pizza. Now you’ll never forget it. It’s best served the day it’s made.

Ingredients
1 (18-ounce) sugar cookie dough (see below)
Cooking spray
2 tablespoons seedless raspberry jam, melted
3/4 cup Lemon Curd (see below)
2 cups fresh raspberries
2 cups blackberries 1 cup sliced strawberries
1 plum, sliced 2 teaspoons sugar
(I used rasberrys and a few backberrys)
Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°.
Press dough into a 12-inch pizza pan coated with cooking spray.
Bake at 350° for 12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely on a wire rack.
Preheat broiler.
Spread jam over crust.
Spread Lemon Curd over jam; arrange raspberries, blackberries, strawberry slices, and plum slices on top.
Sprinkle sugar over fruit; broil 3 minutes.
Yield
12 servings (serving size: 1 wedge)Nutritional Information
CALORIES 261(30% from fat); FAT 8.6g (sat 2.3g,mono 2.8g,poly 3g); IRON 1.4mg; CHOLESTEROL 37mg; CALCIUM 19mg; CARBOHYDRATE 43.1g; SODIUM 173mg; PROTEIN 2.5g; FIBER 3.1g

 

Lemon Curd
For a lime-curd variation, substitute lime rind and juice for the lemon rind and juice.
Ingredients
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
2 large eggs
2/3 cup fresh lemon juice (about 3 large lemons)
2 tablespoons butter or stick margarine
Preparation
Combine the first 3 ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring with a whisk. Cook until sugar dissolves and mixture is light in color (about 3 minutes). Stir in lemon juice and butter; cook for 5 minutes or until mixture thinly coats the back of a spoon, stirring constantly with a whisk. Cool. Cover and chill (the mixture will thicken as it cools).
Note: Lemon Curd can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. You can easily double the recipe and freeze half of it in a heavy-duty zip-top plastic bag. Thaw in the refrigerator, and use within 1 week of thawing.
Yield
1 1/3 cups (serving size: 1 tablespoon)
Nutritional Information
CALORIES 47(31% from fat); FAT 1.6g (sat 0.8g,mono 0.5g,poly 0.1g); CHOLESTEROL 24mg; CALCIUM 4mg; CARBOHYDRATE 7.9g; SODIUM 18mg; PROTEIN 0.7g; IRON 0.1mg
Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies
There are untold numbers of sugar cookie recipes circulating throughout the Midwest. As students of this sweet know, lard makes for a particularly toothsome cookie, with a texture at once crisp and sandy. For a cookie that is crisp but also chewy, vegetable shortening is best.
Servings: Makes about 32 cookies.

Ingredients
1/2 cup lard or vegetable shortening, melted and cooled

1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 cup sugar plus additional for coating the cookies
1 large egg1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
Preparation
In a large bowl stir together the lard or shortening, the butter, 1 cup of the sugar, the egg, and the vanilla.
Into the bowl sift together the flour, the baking soda, and the salt and stir the mixture until it forms a dough.
Chill the dough, covered, for at least 2 hours or overnight.
(If you just want to make cookies and not the fruit pizza)
Preheat the oven to 375°F.
Roll rounded tablespoons of the dough into balls, roll the balls in the additional sugar, coating them completely, and arrange them 3 inches apart on lightly greased baking sheets.
Flatten the balls with the bottom of a glass dipped in the sugar (the edges will crack slightly) and bake the cookies in batches in the middle of the oven for 8 to 12 minutes, or until they are pale golden.
Transfer the cookies to racks and let them cool.
The cookies keep in an airtight container for 1 week.