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!
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!
You’re my hero – and we must be on the same wavelength because I have been meaning to do this recipe, except I didn’t have any beets (for a natural food dye). Love this!
VERY very nice~ 😀 *drool* I exercise a lot, try to eat as many healthy foods as possible as well some unhealthy every now and then, and have good influences around me!