As you know, I’m not much of a cook or baker. But when there’s a recipe that our family loves, we make it over and over again. Today’s dessert is one that my mom has made during the fall season for years now. One of her girlfriends passed along the recipe to her (her bestie is the queen of desserts!) and now it’s a staple for any fall gatherings with our family. The best part is it’s super simple, which is pretty much my highest priority when it comes to all things in the kitchen.

A Favorite Dessert for Fall

This taffy apple pizza recipe is a dessert pizza that is great for a crowd, especially a group with kiddos. Every fall, we usually go apple picking as a family (more on that below) and I never know what to do with all of the apples. This recipe will at least use up one or two of those and will be a yummy treat for the family.

My Best Tips for Taffy Apple Pizza

The base of this pizza is made with sugar cookie dough. You can also use peanut butter cookie dough if you’re a big peanut butter fan. In the past, I’ve never struggled to find a roll of this kind of cookie dough, but when I went to make the recipe to take these photos, it was impossible to find a roll! The only available dough in a roll was chocolate chip! I visited two stores; Finn went to two more; and finally, my mom found a roll of sugar cookie dough at her local market.

If you can’t find a roll, I think you could use the take and break-apart sugar or peanut butter cookie dough. It might take a bit more effort to get it all spread out evenly on your pan, though. I greased my round pan with butter before pushing the cookie dough into place and then I baked it at 350 degrees for 12 minutes. While you’re cooking the dough, be sure to get your cream cheese out of the fridge so it can begin to soften.

Use A Mixer for Your Frosting

To make the frosting, I used my Kitchenaid mixer, but a regular hand mixer works great too. As I just mentioned, you want to make sure your cream cheese is softened so everything mixes well and easily.

Once your cream cheese is all mixed together, use a spatula to spread it evenly across the baked cookie. This was a fun “lick the bowl” moment and I wish Rory was around when I made this recipe so she could have tasted this yummy frosting!

Thinly Slice Your Apples

You’ll want to make sure that you thinly slice your apples for the topping. I tried to get mine as thin as possible when I was cutting, and I ended up using two small apples for the recipe.

I fanned mine out to make it look pretty, but you can do whatever kind of design you want on top!

Try Your Own Toppings

I ended up buying a bag of chopped peanuts to add on top, but you can use any kind of nut on top here. Or, if you’re not a nut fan, or have an allergy, just eliminate them altogether.

You could also try caramel sauce drizzled on top (that could be yummy) or any other goodies that sound appetizing to you. There’s no right or wrong way to make this!

Keep Refrigerated

It’s important to keep your taffy apple pizza chilled when you’re not serving it. I put foil over mine and keep it in our fridge; then I cut slices, using a pizza cutter, when serving. This will keep the frosting from getting too messy.

Such A Yummy Treat!

I’m not a big fruity dessert person. Instead, I’m all about chocolate. This dessert is sweet, but not overly fruity, so I’m a big fan, even though this recipe doesn’t call for any chocolate. I don’t know how food bloggers do it, because having this pizza in our house was deadly! We wanted to eat the entire thing in a day! So, that’s my warning to you that you may want to gobble it all up when you make it. It’s that good!

Our Family Fall Bucket List

Now that the kids are getting older, we are all about figuring out our family traditions. We are both big fall lovers and we want to truly take advantage of this favorite season of ours. Finn and I sat down and created a list of all of the things we wanted to do as a family throughout the fall.

Sometimes the weekends can get away from us, so this really helped us come up with a plan for when we want to tackle all of these fun activities. Here’s a look at our list…

• Go apple picking
• Make homemade applesauce
• Carve pumpkins
• Bake pumpkin seeds
• Make a stovetop potpourri and let it permeate the house all day! (Here’s my recipe).
• Go to a Notre Dame game
• Decorate the front porch for fall (and snap a family photo on our stoop)
• Dress up as a family for Halloween (I’m excited for you guys to see our costumes.)
• Visit a new neighborhood to see the fall colors
• Enjoy our neighborhood Halloween block party
• Do a backyard movie night
• Painting class date night

We printed this out and put it in the kitchen and we’ve slowly been ticking things off and discussing all of the upcoming activities with the kids. It’s fun to get them excited about these fall adventures.

Fall Pumpkin Squares – My Other Fave Fall Dessert

If you need another fall dessert to try, I urge you to give these pumpkin squares a go. They are so delicious and we have them for Thanksgiving dessert, year after year. This is another easy recipe that anyone can make!

Please let me know if you give this taffy apple pizza recipe a try. It’s such a crowd pleaser!