I love red velvet cake but making it is time consuming, and sometimes I just want to be a little of a hipster and surprise someone with an unusual and quirky breakfast. This is the occasion I’m saving these red velvet pancakes recipe fore.

With their bright, vibrant red coloring and delicious cream cheese topping, these pancakes not only present a lovely twist on a traditional dessert, they are extremely decorative and if you’e looking to surprise a loved one with a special breakfast on their birthday or on your anniversary, this might just be the quick and easy way to do it.

The recipe is simple. Adding cocoa powder is quite optional, but I really do love a little chocolatey taste in my pancakes. That’s all it does, so if you want to create pancakes that taste like any regular pancakes, but are blood-red, don’t add the cocoa powder.

There are several ways you can make your pancake batter rise to make extra fluffy and soft pancakes. One of them is making the batter the night before. That might give out your secret though, so another way is to beat egg yolks and whites separately. The fluffy whites if you beat them till they form peaks, will make the batter airy.

You can bake them in a skillet or in a pancake griddle if you have one. Griddle is my personal choice, because I can make a neat cake-like stack of pancakes this way.

Other than that, just follow the simple steps below to create an amazing surprise breakfast for someone you love or for your own self.