Gluten Free Banana Red Velvet Cake Shake & Fruit Pizza | February Food Blog Swap Meet

Two straws, one glass makes this banana red velvet cake shake extra sweet!  Share with your Valentine for a romantic treat.

Yield 1 serving

Banana Red Velvet Cake Shake

I have a special Valentine's treat for you guys! I'm participating in the Food Blog Swap Meet again this month! So if you want the recipe for that tasty Banana Red Velvet Cake Shake, you'll have to head over to Edward's blog and find it here!



In exchange for my shake recipe, he's sharing a recipe with you all for a romantic fruit pizza, just in time for Valentine's Day:

The theme for February's Food Blog Swap Meet is Valentine's Day, of course. This presented me with a problem. I'm on a diet. My wife and I are going on a cruise next year and we want to drop the pounds that have slowly crept on since getting married 5 years ago.

Ordinarily, I could be counted on for eating a box or two of chocolates on my own over the course of the two weeks leading up to Valentines' Day. But not this year. Gone are the chocolates and cupcakes. There are no sugar candies or fudges in my immediate future. I needed to think outside of the culinary box, so to speak. After discussing the problem with some friends, one of them suggested a fruit pizza.

Using a combination of different red fruits gives the dish a Valentine's Day feel even if it doesn't have any ingredients typically affiliated with the holiday. I'll admit, I had never heard of a fruit pizza before. I looked it up. I made it the next day. A traditional fruit pizza consists of sliced fruit on a bed of cream cheese on a cookie dough crust. I knew that was going to need some tweaking for me. Fat-free cream cheese was a pretty obvious substitute, but I replaced the crust as well. I opted for a traditional pizza crust. And, of course, I cut it in the shape of a heart. That took the tenuous connection to Valentine's Day and cemented it, albeit in a slightly cheesy way.

Ingredients

• 1 pizza crust mix (I'm a big fan of Canterbury Natural's flatbread mix)
• 3/4 cup water (or however much called for in your pizza crust)
• 1/4 cup fat-free cream cheese
• 1 apple, sliced
• 1 banana, sliced
• 1/2 lb strawberries, sliced

 Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Prepare pizza dough according to directions on package. Set aside for 30 minutes for dough to rise and then roll out in the shape of a large circle. Trim to shape into a heart.
3. Slice the fruit into 1/2" slices and set aside.
   
4. Spread cream cheese over dough and arrange fruit slices on top.
5. Bake for 7-10 minutes until crust begins to crisp.

Edward Antrobus writes at If You Can Read, You Can Cook where he shares easy recipes and kitchen tips for people learning how to cook. He believes that cooking great meals isn't as hard as people thing and is really just reading and following directions. As his mother always told him as a child, "if you can read, you can cook!" You can follow Edward & If You Can Read, You Can Cook on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, and Sverve.

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Gotta have delicious drinks?Try these:

Nutella Gingerbread Cocoa

Copycat Sonic Watermelon Fresh Fruit Slush

Marshmallow Fluff Frozen Hot Chocolate