Chocolate and Strawberry Dessert Pizza

Happy Valentine's Day!!!  I like to think of Valentine's as a day to celebrate all the people I love, not just my hubby.  And I love all of you for reading my blog!  It just makes it more fun to have readers :)  So this is my virtual Valentine's gift to you.  The base is my favorite basic chocolate chip cookie, layered with a mixture of powdered sugar, cream cheese, cool whip and white chocolate, all topped off with fresh strawberries drizzled in chocolate!  It is looks and tastes impressive!  After I drizzled on the chocolate with a fork I realized that last time I made this I used a ziploc with the corner snipped off and had a prettier final presentation because I could make little swirls with the chocolate.  Oh well, the taste was uncompromised :)

Chocolate and Strawberry Dessert Pizza  Source: All The Best cookbook by Pampered Chef

Ingredients:

1 batch of your favorite chocolate chip cookie dough or an 18 oz. package of store bought dough

2 squares (1 oz. each) white chocolate

2 tbsp. milk

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/4 C powdered sugar

1 C cool whip, thawed

24-30 strawberries, cut in half

1/4 C semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 tsp vegetable oil

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Prepare cookie dough. 

3. Spread cookie dough on a large round baking stone into a 12 inch circle, 1/4 inch thick. 

Be sure to leave room for the cookie to expand during baking

4. Bake cookie for 12-15 minutes.  Cookie will still be a little soft.  Remove from oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes.

5. Using a long serrated knife, carefully loosen the cookie from the baking stone.

Notice how much the cookie expanded!

6. Place white chocolate and milk in a small bowl and microwave for 1 minute.  Stir until chocolate is melted and smooth.  Microwave additional 10-20 seconds if necessary.

7. In a medium bowl, combine the the cream cheese and powdered sugar mixing well.  Gradually in the white chocolate mixture.  Fold in the cool whip.

8. Spread the cream cheese mixture evenly over the baked cookie.

9. Gently pat the halved strawberries dry to remove any excess moisture.

10. Arrange strawberries on top of cream cheese mixture.

11. Melt semi-sweet chocolate chips and oil in microwave for 30 seconds.  Stir until smooth.   Allow to chocolate to cool slightly and place in a ziploc bag.  Snip the corner off and drizzle over the strawberries.

12. Cut into wedges and enjoy!

*Regular milk chocolate won't melt as well as semi-sweet and does not have as pretty of a color for the drizzled topping. 

**Pampered Chef calls this recipe Fruit-Topped Triple Chocolate Pizza and uses mandarin oranges in place of 1/2 of the strawberries.

This post linked to: Valentine's Treats at Baked Bree, Sweets for a Saturday at Sweet as Sugar Cookies