Hey POPsters!!!
Happy Pancake Day! What a fabulous day, yes?
Today I urge you to either try the banana pancakes or this super moist and nutritious Red Velvet Pancake recipe I created just a few hours ago.
Made a complete mess in the kitch!
Oh and guess what! It’s almost Valentine’s Day too! Are you excited? Who has a sweetie pie to snuggle with? Who’s celebrating Singles Awareness Day the day after? (No, seriously.)
After posting my cranberry salad video, I got a ton of comments asking for a V day recipe. So I did a TON of research and decided whatever I made had to be red and it had to be in the shape of a heart.
Lucky for me, I had already gotten a heart baking pan the week before! Now the red…
Well, it turns out that red velvet is a popular thing to eat around V day. So! I googled a ton of recipes for inspiration. I also got a dose of history class. Did you know that during World War II when foods were rationed, bakers used boiled beet juice to enhance the look of their cakes? Pureed beets in the batter also served to retain moisture! Amazing. I had no idea. But I was so happy that I wouldn’t have to use any artificial food coloring in this recipe! That’s so Blogilates.
So here’s my recipe for red velvet pancakes and cupcakes (it’s the same batter).
NATURAL Red Velvet Cupcakes ‘n Pancakes with Healthy Cream Cheese Frosting!
INGREDIENTS (6 cupcakes and 10 mini pancakes)
- 1 cup oats
- 1 ripe banana
- 1 cup almond milk
- 1 steamed beet
- 1 TBSP pure vanilla extract
- 1 TBSP ground flax seed
- 2 TBSP baking powder
- pinch of salt
- a squeeze of lemon
CREAM CHEESE FROSTING (for cupcakes)
- 4 oz of 1/3 less fat Cream Cheese
- 1 TBSP of nonfat plain greek yogurt
- 1 tsp of honey
- drops of natural beet juice to desired color of pink
- dash of psyllium husk to thicken (optional)
CREAM CHEESE DRIZZLE (for pancakes)
Same as above but add a dash of almond milk to make it more liquidy! Or if you want the consistency to be more ooey gooey add another tsp of honey!
DIRECTIONS FOR CUPCAKES:
- Grab a fresh beet. Chop off the head and tail. Wash the skin thoroughly! You need to scrub it to get the dirt off.
- Then place it in a small bowl filled with a couple TBSP of water. Cover with saran wrap. Then microwave for about 5 min or until soft enough to puree.
- Now! Place the beet in a blender, squeeze some lemon (to preserve radiant red color) and turn it into a soft puree. If you are having difficulty mixing, feel free to add a tiny bit of water.
- Mix the beet puree with all of your other ingredients in the blender!
- Spray your muffin tin with some cooking oil, then pour it in!
- Bake at 350F for about 15 min or until the center is no longer sticky when you dip a toothpick down it.
- Let them cool! I put them in the freezer for about 15 min.
- Then spoon your frostings into ziplock baggies, cut a small hole at the end of a corner, and go decorating crazy!
DIRECTIONS FOR PANCAKES:
- Use the same batter. Just spray your griddle with cooking oil then pour it on, flip, and bam you’re done!
- Drizzle with the cream cheese drizzle recipe.
You’ll notice that I didn’t add any cocoa powder in here but that’s only because I can’t eat chocolate. Quick Cassey-factoid recap – my tastebuds are so sensitive that all chocolate tastes extremely bitter like medicine to me. But feel free to add it in if you feel like it’ll give you a richer taste.
These came out moist and OMG wonderful. They were perfect, delicious, and ahhhhhh…just makes you wanna sigh. I found that the banana was just enough sweetness for me. But if you need more, just add some honey into the batter or a tsp of Stevia.
TIP: Oh and wear an apron and maybe gloves. Beet juice stains. Have a ton of paper towels around!
Have fun and please tweet, facebook, or insta me @Blogilates and use #blogilates. Can’t wait to see!!
Love you,
Cassey
Hi Cassey!
Great blog, so easy to navigate and I love how anything I read has suggestions for other articles I might enjoy – I could lose an entire day browsing on this blog! I really enjoyed this article in particular. I find the recipe easy to follow (the use of pictures is extremely helpful) and the cupcakes and pancakes look absolutely delicious! I like how you’ve given different options for different people (i.e. the use of cocoa or not). Keep it up!
refined this recipe! everything is the same except:
-steamed beet
-lemon
+3/4c blueberries
+egg
+3tbsp sugar (i know its not that healthy but i am experimenting with sweetness)
and i reduced the baking soda and flax seed amounts by .25%
its in the oven right now. i am really hoping they come out good. if you want to stay updated on how yummy or yucky they came out still, please checkout my blog by clicking my name.
Hey Cassey! Tried out this recipe today! It was pretty terrible. Let me tell you. I don’t know how you got such a red color. Mine went brown after the oven. The frosting was way to cheesy. The cupcake it self had a not too bad flavor, but not a cupcake flavor. Cupcakes should bee sweet, but I got a bitter taste.
For the next time I am taking out the beets all together and adding just the juice for the color. I am adding honey in the actual cupcake mix. and instead of calling it “Red Velvet” it is vanilla. And as per the frosting, less cheese, i will add vanilla extract, and vanilla greek yogurt. maybe these alterations will make them taste better. I hope so.
I really tried to like it Cassey, i am a big fan. I was disappointed though. Oh well. Better luck next time xo
Hi, All. I’m wondering if part of the trouble may be that, in sum, no two things are alike. :)
1) People’s tastebuds vary, not only in number, but in proportion and how things actually ‘taste’ to a person. What’s bitter for one may not be for another. Same with “beety-ness.” The same recipe, even the same BATCH, can taste totally different to two different people. If that isn’t enough, even if they do experience similar levels of the same flavour, some folks like it and some don’t. Complicated! (chuckles)
2) Some beets are stronger than others, and some are sweeter. And again, some folks taste them more than others.
3) There are several kinds of oats, such as steel-cut, rolled, quick-cooking and instant. Depending on their size and % surface area, they absorb liquid differently and at different speeds. Instant oats, for example, will often give a gooey texture because they don’t hold their texture as long as rolled oats do in the presence of heat and moisture. That’s what makes them ‘instant,’ after all. So the term ‘oats’ in a recipe can cause problems. I notice that Cassey’s oats seem to have “Quick Cooking” on them. Is that right, C?
These are absolutely AMAZING, Cassey!!! They are so much like real red velvet cupcakes. (P.S. I made the cupcakes!) The consistency of the batter was perfect! I used a normal 6 cupcake tin and cute baking cups, but I actually got 7 from my amount of batter (which was EVEN BETTER!). Also, I had to bake them for 30 min.
I’m a very picky eater these smelled delicious. but they were a bit too beety(I used a small beet). However, they were palatable enough and with frosting(I used strawberry chobani greek yogurt). You almost don’t taste the beets if you put about 1 TBSP on top.
I was so excited for this recipe & couldn’t wait to try it out! Had to make a lot of substitutes though!
& it turned out to be an interesting endeavor LOL. I tried making pancakes instead of the cupcakes using 3 small beets. But had to use buckwheat b/c have no oats/have oat sensitivity. No flaxseed and didn’t have almond milk either, so used white chocolate milk. The first pancakes came out really gooey inside even though bottom was cooked :| I think I added too much milk… So threw in 1 cup of whole wheat flour LOL. & forgot about the lemon/lime so they didn’t turn out as red as I hope :( Tasted pretty good though thanks to the banana. Thought it was gonna be a complete fail! All in all, very interesting…
Oh man.. I did not like these AT ALL :( I’m sowwy Cassey, I tried to like them, I really did … but … that beet flavor is just WAY too intense for me. Idk what I did wrong. I only added like 1/3 of a fairly large beet in there. I made both the pancakes and the cupcakes, and the pancakes actually weren’t too bad, they still had a beet flavor to them but they were okay. But the cupcakes… tasted like baked beets! haha. I wish I knew how to make them like you did, Cassey! I might try making these again some other time using less beets. Great concept though, and I still encourage everyone to give this recipe a try and maybe together we’ll find a solution to the over “beety-ness” of these! :)
Hey Cassey ;)
Thanks for posting this recipe.. I’m finally getting around to making it. The red velvet cupcakes/pancakes recipe is a cool idea V-Day or not! And it’s even better that it’s vegan in my case!
One question I had though.. And a reason so many people might be having problems with the way their cupcakes/pancakes are turning out is that you don’t specify what size of beet to use. There’s a lot of variation in beet size! Hah And this could definitely change the recipe consistency a good bit.
Look forward to hearing back!
Thanks ;D
Rachel
I decided against making these for my boyfriend for Valentines Day because I wanted to test them out first… and I’m glad I did. :-( I was super excited when I saw this recipe because it sounded exactly like the kind of thing I would love!
However my stomach is now grumbly and upset after trying them out. Bummer.
The texture was gooey inside, the outsides burned despite the low heat, and were a little too “beety” for me.
Anyways I like reading your new recipes and love your workouts!
Wow, these look soooo yummy. I shared and can’t wait to try them. Thanks so much for coming up with this recipe.
WOW these look delicious I can’t wait to try this! You not being able to eat chocolate is probably a blessing in disguise, but I will never know because I just <3 chocolate wayy too much :D
Hey cassey im new at blogilates world,so i just wannna tell tjat i really lovbbeee your nails!can you show us how you make them? Pleasee xx♡
Am I the only one that can’t see the pics?
I can’t either, and I could at first. Weird.
Can I substitute something for the beet? Can I take out the flax seed?
I made these but she didn’t specify EXACTLY how much beet. Beets vary in size so “one beet” can be very very different. I had a big beet so my cupcakes came out extremely moist, gooey, and dense. Also, beet is a strong flavor. These didn’t taste like red velvet at all. They tasted like beet. I don’t know why I was surprised. Next time I think I would add probably 1/4 c cocoa powder and a half of a beet instead of a whole one.
The same thing happened to me when I tried to make them :( they tasted really bad. I think it was because the beet I used was to big though..
i am not sure…. but take a look at the pictures….. you can see a beet there… the beet that Cassey used was probably around that size….. pretty small i guess
You can make red velvet oatmeal with beets too
here’s my favorite version it’s to dieeee for
https://healthyrevelations.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/healthy-red-velvet-oatmeal/
I made them this morning! They were good..would have been better if I could figure out how to get the temp right for my griddle!
Casey, Thank You for the recipe! I used the entire recipe to make my boyfriend a tall stack of pancakes this morning. He said they were Delicious!
For anyone thinking about making these, I had a hard time to blending the beet in my run of the mill blender. Using a magic bullet or a small food processor will probably do a better job. Also the pancakes stayed really soft and I heated them for awhile but don’t let the softness full you, they were still really good.
THIS IS MIND-BLOWINGLY AWESOME. The unfortunate thing is that my cupcakes turned out a brownish-green colour after being in the oven. They still tasted delish though. My pancakes were also the same. Does anyone have any idea on how to fix that as I do not want to use food colour (they’re ridiculously expensive)?
P.S. I added lemon juice, but it was only a few drops. Maybe I should add more?
did u use fresh or canned beets? fresh makes all the difference.
It was fresh beets that I bought especially for this recipe. However, my beet was only around 8 x 8 in size so was that too little?
YUMMMMMM!!! Those look AMAZING….:D Happy Valentine’s Day!
Has anyone tried this?! Does it taste like Almond Milk? I think I have some somewhere, don’t really like the taste of it. But if you can’t taste almond milk in this, I’d love to try!
I only tasted beet.
OMG CASSEY I LOVE YOU. Red velvet is my freaking love and weakness and YOU just made it HEALTHY therefore I can finally eat it without the guilt. I LOVE YOUUU def will be trying this out soon!!!
Whats the nutritional info on this delish looking treat?!
Try putting all the ingredients into My Fitness Pal.
These look amazing! I don’t think I’ve ever baked anything with beets before. Thanks for sharing the recipe!
Any idea on calories/fat/protein/carbs?
Wow! They look lovely and tasty, I should try it out some time . On the other hand, CASSEY, your nails!! How did you do them? They look absolutely stunning!
You use a lot of banana in your recipes. Banana’s hate me! Lol. They give me the worst stomach aches. Are they vital to the consistency of these? Or are they just a filler? What can I use instead?
Random, but maybe applesauce would work? Still a fruit (well, at one point, anyway) and since everything gets all mashed up anyway, that could be a viable possibility!
That is a great substitute. Applesauce gets used in recipes for baking all the time. Great idea.
can you use a substitue for the Beets?
I don’t understand how you do it! I just tried the recipe, and my cupcakes turned out terrible :( they’re not at all as red and beautiful as yours, and I just felt like all the flavour disappeared in the oven. Plus they didn’t wanna settle properly, so they’re all goey! What kind of almond milk/oats did you use?
the ingredients are pictured!
Malin, oh my you arent alone haha!… mine blew up in the oven!!! they gooed all over the place and my pancakes were no better!! :( nothing ever settled for me either, i guess i need to try again…
They also failed for me. The bottom never set up, but stayed wet and gooey – I even left them in the oven for an extra 7 minutes. But the top part cooked up and tasted really good. I used the cupcake papers to bake them – maybe that was part of the problem. I will still try it again because it was fun and tasty!
I tried these last night and they didn’t really work out for me either :-(
I cooked then almost 30 minutes and they’re still all gooey inside. They don’t have much flavour either and are more muffiny tasting than sweet and cupcakey. A bit disapponted for sure! Am so willing to try again though so if anyone had any suggestions, I would love to know a trick or two!!
I also found the icing way too cream cheesy and not sweet in the least. I think next time I would use less cream cheese and more yogurt/honey.