Pizza? Crackers? Why not both! These adorable Crunchy Keto Pizza Hearts make a hearty and heartwarming snack for Valentine’s Day — or any day when you want to pamper your family, guests, or yourself!
How to make these 5-Ingredient Crunchy Keto Pizza Hearts
The cracker crust for these pizza hearts is based on my Two-Ingredient Crackers recipe in my Low Sugar, So Simple book. And that recipe is based on this Sour Cream and Chive Crackers recipe that I posted almost 10 years ago. I accidentally found out that almond flour mixed just with cream cheese makes the ultimate — and the easiest — crackers! As you can guess, that recipe is my to-go keto cracker recipe I make very often. The basic recipe is easy to vary with different seasonings.
So, for this recipe, you’ll make the cracker dough, cut out heart shapes, add the pizza toppings and bake. That’s it! So easy, so simple, and so delicious! (Did I mention adorable as well?)
A word about the baking temperature: I prefer low temperature (300 °F = 150 °C) for this recipe as the crust bakes more evenly at a lower temperature and doesn’t burn that easily.
Let’s take a look at how to make these adorable tidbits:
Place 2 cups (470 ml) super-fine almond flour into a medium bowl.
Add 2.5 oz (70 g) plain full-fat cream cheese.
Knead until stiff dough forms.
You can press the ingredients with your fist for more effective kneading.
Form a ball from the dough.
Place the dough ball on parchment paper.
Place another parchment paper on top.
Roll out the dough between the two parchment papers until about 0.16 inches (4 mm) thick.
Remove the topmost parchment paper and cut out heart shapes from the dough. (I use 2.4 × 2.6 inch = 6 × 6.5 cm cookie cutter.)
Place the hearts on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Roll out the leftover dough and cut out heart shapes until you have no dough left. I got 24 hearts.
Take 1/4 cup (60 ml) marinara sauce.
Divide the marinara sauce evenly on the hearts.
Place a slice of pepperoni on each heart.
Take 1/4 cup (60 ml) shredded mozzarella and sprinkle it on the hearts.
They look cute, don’t they!
Bake at 300°F (150 °C) for 20 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the hearts get some color. Don’t let get too brown!
Remove from the oven
Let cool until warm, and serve.
Fabulous!
How I came up with this easy Keto Pizza Heart recipe
This week has been super hectic due to several tasks and activities. Therefore, I needed a very simple recipe as my weekly blog post. I had written down an idea for a fluffy skillet bread. The recipe looked quite ready, so I grabbed the ingredients, prepared the batter, and fried the bread on a skillet.
Even I used the lowest heat, the bottom came out too dark.
Even worse: my bread turned out as an omelet rather than bread! For a moment, I was about to post the recipe as an omelet recipe. However, I thought it still needed improvement, and now I certainly didn’t have time to tackle that issue. I needed something foolproof, quick, and simple.
I took the next idea from my list: Keto Pizza Dippers. I had written down this idea several years ago, and I vaguely remembered what I was after. I think I wanted to make kind of breadsticks that were topped with pizza toppings.
After playing with the recipe, I suddenly came up with the idea of Keto Pizza Pinwheels. Now, that sounded exciting! I simply could take my trusted Two-Ingredient Cracker recipe from my Low Sugar, So Simple book and use that as a crust. I was planning to fill the crust with marinara sauce, pepperoni, and shredded mozzarella, roll into a tight roll and cut into slices that would make lovely pinwheels. Naturally, I would bake those pinwheels in the oven.
The dough turned out perfect, and after adding the toppings, the pizza looked fabulous. However, when I started rolling the dough, it cracked badly and simply didn’t hold together! There went my ‘foolproof’ idea about charming Keto Pizza Pinwheels down the drain!
I baked the cracked pizza in the oven anyway. It tasted good, but I was naturally disappointed that my pinwheel approach didn’t work.
Well, I clearly needed to come up with another recipe for my blog. The time was tight, and I certainly didn’t have time for experimenting. Suddenly, I realized that my Keto Pizza Pinwheel recipe might work perfectly as Pizza Crackers! So, if I cut out squares and topped them with marinara sauce, pepperoni, and mozzarella, they would make adorable appetizers and snacks!
Immediately, I made another batch of dough, rolled it out into a thin layer, and started cutting out squares. However, my cookie cutter was fluted, so the corners of the cut-out shapes got stuck to the cutter. Now what?! Was my recipe completely doomed?
Soon, I realized that I needed to use a basic (not fluted) cookie cutter that I always do when preparing crackers anyway. When searching for an appropriate cookie cutter from my huge cookie cutter box, I found a bunch of heart-shaped cookie cutters. Those would be just perfect for the approaching Valentine’s Day! So, if I cut out heart shapes, added the pizza toppings, and baked — that should make the most adorable savory Valentine’s Day treat! Who wouldn’t love pizza? And crackers? And now you get both as an attractive heart shape! Sounded perfect to me!
I whipped up yet another batch of dough and started cutting out heart shapes. It was easy, and the hearts came out perfect. Marvelous! After topping the hearts with marinara, pepperoni, and mozzarella and baking them in the oven, my joy was tangible when I saw that the recipe was working perfectly, making adorable Crunchy Keto Pizza Hearts that tasted superb! I was so relieved that my recipe was saved in the prettiest and the tastiest way!
Here’s the recipe for you to enjoy:
5-Ingredient Crunchy Keto Pizza Hearts
Pizza? Crackers? Why not both! These adorable Crunchy Keto Pizza Hearts make a hearty and heartwarming snack for Valentine’s Day — or any day when you want to pamper your family, guests, or yourself!
Ingredients
- 2 cups = 470 ml super-fine almond flour
- 2.5 oz = 70 g plain full-fat cream cheese
- 1/4 cup = 60 ml marinara sauce
- 24 pepperoni slices
- 1/4 cup = 60 ml shredded mozzarella
Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150 °C).
2. Combine the almond flour and the cream cheese in a bowl. Knead until stiff dough forms.
3. Roll out the dough between two parchment papers until about 0.16 inches (4 mm) thick.
4. Remove the topmost parchment paper and cut out heart shapes from the dough. (I use 2.4 × 2.6 inch = 6 × 6.5 cm cookie cutter.)
5. Place the hearts on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet.
6. Roll out the leftover dough and cut out heart shapes until you have no dough left.
7. Spread the marinara sauce evenly on the hearts.
8. Place a slice of pepperoni on each heart.
9. Sprinkle the mozzarella on the hearts.
10. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the hearts get some color. Don't let get too brown!
11. Remove from the oven, let cool until warm, and serve.
12. The pizza hearts store in the fridge for up to three days, however, they get a bit soft, so they are best enjoyed fresh.
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| Nutrition information | In total | Per serving if 24 servings in total |
| Protein | 73.2 g | 3.1 g |
| Fat | 142.6 g | 5.9 g |
| Net carbs | 16.7 g | 0.7 g |
| kcal | 1675 kcal | 70 kcal |
Tips for variations
If you don’t care for a cracker-type approach, you can use mozzarella dough aka Fathead dough for the crust.
Naturally, the easiest way to get variation to this recipe is to change the pizza toppings. Here are some ideas:
- Margherita topping: marinara sauce, mozzarella, fresh basil (add the basil after baking)
- Quattro stagioni topping: marinara sauce, tomato, artichoke, mushrooms, ham (or prosciutto), shredded mozzarella
- Romana topping: marinara sauce, tomato, mozzarella, anchovies, fresh oregano, shredded mozzarella
- Quattro formaggi topping: marinara sauce, mozzarella, ricotta, fontina, gorgonzola
- Seafood topping: marinara sauce, shrimp, tuna, canned mussels or (fresh or defrosted frozen) scallops, shredded mozzarella
- Meat lover’s topping: marinara sauce, cooked beef strips, ham, bacon, shredded mozzarella
- Spicy meat lover’s topping: marinara sauce, hot sausage, pepperoni, bacon, Parmesan cheese
- Bolognese topping: bolognese sauce (add fried ground beef to marinara sauce), shredded mozzarella
General prattling
I love seasonal cooking and baking — and especially seasonal treats. Our Ketokamu brand lets me express myself and develop all the keto recipes I’ve ever wanted for everyday use and for the finest celebrations alike!
This week was no exception. For example, I developed a blini recipe with our Ketokamu baking mix. I experimented with blinis several weeks ago, but now when the season is on, it was time to perfect the recipe. My keto baking Facebook group readers were asking for a recipe for thick, fluffy blinis. And that’s what I wanted to give to them.
Thanks to buckwheat and sour cream, the Finnish version of blinis tastes sour. I also used thick sour cream (smetana) in my keto blini experiments, but the blinis turned out too dense and heavy. I got the idea to swap the sour cream to lemon juice for sourness, and that solved the problem. I ended up with thick and fluffy blinis, which tasted slightly sour — just like the blinis should. Marvelous!
Now, when thinking of it, these blinis should be able to be prepared with 5 ingredients (naturally replacing our baking mix with an easier obtainable ingredient), so that might be something for this blog!
Since Valentine’s Day is tomorrow, I made a version of my last week’s Keto Strawberry Caramel Panna Cotta for the Ketokamu readers as well. I left out the caramel flavor and used our own sweetener.
Oh yes! We had nice aurora borealis, i.e., northern lights, on Tuesday. It’s quite exceptional to see them here in Southern Finland. I took some photos with my cell phone, but they didn’t turn out that clear. I hope you see some lights in the sky anyway:
How cute…! Another idea for a special “S. Valentyne” shape would be using a set of scaled cookie-cutters: the biggest one for the crust base, to cover with marinara as you say in your reciupe; then a smaller but always heart-shaped cutter to have a smaller heart in the center made by cuttering a thiny slice of semi-hard cheese, or ham. And for a more refreshing note you could also use the crust base covered with marinara and then,once out of the oven, garnish with two basil leaf in opposed diagonal to resemble an heart too .. I’ll give these all a try in the next days 😉 Thank you for the savoury easy inspiration for an occasion often covered with thousand of sweet recipe (anyway always appreciated 😉 )
Hi Roberta! Thank you for the ideas, they all sound good — I like especially the idea of basil heart <3 I actually just made a version with Fathead dough, they turned out prettier than this version as I now learned to place the toppings in a neater way.