Heart Healthy.
Or not so much. It’s ironic that—thanks to sugary sweets, fancy dinners, and rich desserts—a day devoted to matters of the heart can be so dangerous for your heart. Google “red velvet” and your results will be saturated with butter, eggs, heavy cream, and enough sugar to sweeten even the Grinch. Pretty, for sure. But healthy, it is not.
Until now.
Flipping through People Magazine last Friday, I stumbled across a recipe for “Jessica Alba’s favorite red velvet pancakes.” Red velvet pancakes?! I had to create a heart-healthy version.
Mission accomplished. These are like eating cake for breakfast!
Red Velvet Pancakes for One
- 2T flour (I used 20g whole-wheat pastry)
- 2T plus 1tsp oat bran (20g) (you can sub flour)
- red food coloring (For alternatives, see: Natural Food Coloring Ideas.)
- 1/2 tsp plus 1/8 tsp baking powder
- scant 1/8 tsp salt
- 2T cocoa powder (I use regular, but if you want a more brownie-like taste, try dutch cocoa)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup plus 1T nondairy milk (95g, or more, if needed)
- optional: If you don’t like the taste of fat-free pancakes, be sure to add 1 tablespoon oil
- 1-2 T sugar, or 1 stevia packet (I left it out. If using liquid sweetener, decrease milk accordingly.)
Mix dry ingredients. Add wet and mix. Then make your pancakes! (Makes 5-6)
Nutrition Information:
(For the entire batch)
- Calories: 230 (130 if omitting oil)
- Fat: 14g (or less than 1g if omitting oil)
- Protein: 3g
- Fiber: 5g
I topped these with my Healthy Cream Cheese Icing.
Then, really fancy things happened. I dusted the pancakes with cocoa powder and swirled some of the chocolatey fairy dust into the frosting.
If you’re still hungry for pancakes (although I don’t know how that’d be possible, after these!), I have an entire recipe tab devoted to them:
Question of the Day:
What do you do to be Heart Healthy?
Get regular exercise? Eat healthy foods? Spend quality time with people who make you happy? The heart is an amazing little organ; be sure to treat it right!
I love all things red velvet! Thanks for the recipe girlie girl, I’ve made red velvet pancakes and cupcakes with steamed, mashed beets instead of oil or applesauce/pumpkin. Works like a charm, and makes them gorgeous!
Those pancakes look amazing!! I try to eat healthy (lots of veggies and oatmeal!) and stay active to stay healthy. Also, I think doing the things that make you happy keep you healthy too! So I try to hang out with friends and eat chocolate whenever I can 🙂
Heck yeah I will be making these! Thank you, dear :).
Those pancakes look amazing Katie. Stunning photos as well! 😀
OH MY Katie you little GENIUS!! I definitely am looking forward to my Pancake Sunday! I know what I’m having!! 😀
Quite obviously, I eat lots of chocolate to be heart healthy. It makes me happy and happiness=a healthy heart 😉
I stay stress-free by laughing and hanging out with people I love! Running too of course – that melts away stress so easily.
ahh katie, these look SO freaking delicious! i can’t stand it! get in ma mouth now! i want to eat them right up, but i’ll hafta wait until i get home. boo. oh and i don’t have oat bran, but maybe i’ll use regular oats, crushed a little, and they’ll be kinda like your oatmeal cookie crepe cakes. what do you think?
love u so much!
Ooo I love your idea!
I know what I’m making for breakfast now! Thanks! 🙂
To keep my ticker happy, I run and work out somewhat regularly (at least 3-4 times a week, if not more), eat as well as I can without having too many rules or without any fun, and I spend as much of the day enjoying my time as possible – being mindful and enjoying washing the laundry, being mindful and enjoying washing the bathroom floor, being mindful and finding something to be happy about when the red line in Boston gets mired by something I’m and stuck on the hot smelly train for a very, very long time (like last week!).
On a side note, Katie, I am moving blog spaces because WordPress doesn’t support the networking community I’m joining, so I moved the post with your feature to the new space. I hope you’ll see it there! 🙂
http://agirlandherboy.typepad.com/blog/2011/02/blog-love.html
Good luck with the move, Jen! I left a comment on your post earlier… did you get it? 🙂
ah I just made similar pancakes to these yesterday, yours look amazing !
Yours look beautiful! I love the heart shape!
I LOVE all of your single-lady creations. As a single lady, I always have leftover pancakes. Sometimes I’ll freeze them, but really, who wants to eat defrosted pancakes?
well… I do, actually hehe. So send me your leftovers! 😉
Wait these look AWESOME. And I’m OBSESSED with the ingredients- so simple and just easy to throw together!! Ahh bookmarked 🙂
OH YUM. Consider this page ‘bookmarked’ 😀
Oh yum! I made pancakes for Valentine’s Day, but they did NOT look this beautiful. Now I want to make yours. Love the blog, btw!
Drooling here!!! 😉
I do everything you listed for staying heart healthy! I also get lots of rest!
Any your pancake pictures are BEAUTIFUL!!!! 🙂
Oooh those look heavenly! The wonders a vegan food-genius and a bit of red food colouring will produce! 🙂 Though, now I wonder what blue pancakes might look like, hmm… Anyway, love your simple directions!
To stay healthy… I do lots of things! I try to maintain a good balance between my leisure time and work/study time, and fill my leisure time with many activities I love – painting, reading, drawing, cooking… At the same time, I try to enjoy my study time by appreciating how interesting the stuff I’m studying actually is. I have to randomly say, though, that I also appreciate bloggers like you who share healthy recipes that taste just as delicious as – if not more than – the “unhealthy” versions. Helps keep our hearts AND palates happy. 😀
I bet blue would even be better! But then again, I’m biased towards the color. Now I want to try omitting the red and adding blueberries!
sweet post! as usual 🙂
I love to workout (ZUMBA is a great workout for mood-lifting), eat healthy, try to avoid stress, talk about problems instead of paper over the cracks, and, last, but not least: surround myself with people and things I love 🙂
I still need to try zumba!