Dangerously delicious

Rhubarb - Strawberry Pie

Rhubarb. How much do we know about this beautiful plant? Well, I didn't really know much about this plant until recently. I was lucky enough to receive a hefty bunch of flesh long stalks a few days ago.

Not knowing what to do with them, I started looking into recipes and cooking ideas online. In my venture, I discovered some pretty interesting facts about this plant.

Rhubarb can come in a variety of colors like the familiar to most of us red, green and white. Also, the reason why we only see its stems sold in markets is due to the high toxicity of the plant's leaves. Although only consumption of a large portion of the leaves can kill, it has been suggested that even a small bite of the rhubarb leave can make one very sick!

Despite this fact, rhubarb is used in medicine and it is considered a dieting product due to its laxative qualities. It doesn't offer large amounts of many vitamins but it is rich in vitamin C. It has a sour taste and therefore in recipes it is usually combined with cinnamon, lots of sugar, ginger and, when baked, it is typically offered with vanilla cream or vanilla ice-cream.

My quick internet search did not really satisfy me so I opted for a look in my favorite baking site. Bingo! A lovely and relatively easy Rhubarb-Strawberry Pie recipe was there ready to be tested. I thought that preparing rhubarb would have been time consuming but I soon realized that I was wrong. Depending on whether one wishes to do the pie crust from scratch or not the preparation of the filling i.e. the rhubarb-strawberry-spices filling, is actually a matter of minutes. Otherwise, preparing the pie crust from scratch is what adds more time to this recipe. I tried it and the result was excellent and pleasing not only to the eyes but to our taste-buds as well.

I am now a bit more confident to handle rhubarb and have at least one recipe to keep perfecting. My next step though will be to try out rhubarb jam :) You know, something that can last and be enjoyed longer!

May Day Breather

Cooking in my kitchen is absolutely amazing and I enjoy it enormously. However, this mother has to take a breather and hang her apron for a day ;)

What a better day than May Day! According to tradition, people here in Finland take to the parks to

May Day 2013 _ Vantaankoski River

enjoy a picnic and some drinks (well...more than some ;) ). I have myself enjoyed a few May Day celebrations in the main park of the City of Helsinki in the past. However, the weather in Finland is very unpredictable in May. Some years we had a wonderful summer's day and some, like today, a cold autumn-like weather.

Taking to the parks may sound great and some people might actually enjoy doing that every single year. For us, a family of four, this tradition belongs more to our youth. Somehow, we slowly shifted our habit of picnic in a park by the sea to a more classy May Day meal in a villa or mansion. Having small kids to drag about played a big part towards this shift.

So, our tradition for May Day changed. It was more practical and intimate to enjoy a cozy meal with each other and take the time to really enjoy each others company. After a couple of years of trying out meals in various villas and mansions, we came across the Kuninkaan Lohet (King's Salmon) Old File Factory by the river Vantaankoski in Vantaa.

Kuninkaan Lohet _ Viilatehfas

This year was the third time we booked a traditional May Day meal at Kuninkaan Lohet. The place is just beautiful. The Old Factory is right next to the river and the view can be enjoyed through the large windows in the dinning hall. The dinning hall, which features an old fireplace (below), used to be a factory where they crafted files. Moreover, one can clearly see the history emerging from the walls as the hall is covered with red brick walls and ceilings supported by iron bars and wooden beams.


The booking can be done online by filling in a form, via phone or email. The menu is a set buffet of traditional
May Day treats with starters, main dishes, desserts and coffee. Included is also Finland's traditional May Day drink called 'sima'. 'Sima' is a drink that can be brewed at home and resembles a bubbly lemonade.

May Day 2014 _ Menu

In the menu one can find all sorts of salads, new potatoes, variety of cheeses, breads, lamb, salmon and wonderful "typical" children's buffet treats like sausages and fries. At the dessert buffet one can savor traditional May Day treats like doughnuts and fruit of the month cakes.



We have enjoyed our May Day meals every year here and we strongly recommend this place. You can visit their pages Kuninkaan Lohet (English version coming soon) to view their offers. Special occasion lunches are organised all year round and their spaces can also be used for other gatherings like personal celebrations, business meetings and even culinary courses.

Red Velvet Cake

For some time now I have been trying to find interesting recipes to add to my repertoire of delicious foods. One of them is the Red Velvet cake. I have seen it being made for wedding cakes, birthday cakes and other special occasions.

As usual, I don't cook food or make desserts just for fun (well, ok, sometimes i do!). I always try to have a reason to create something. Most often it is meant for larger groups to enjoy like events at my kid's day care center, events at home like birthday parties and events at work.


Recently my husband needed to take a cake to work and my inner "Barney" (character from the series How I met your mother) popped up and replied: "Challenge accepted!" Red Velvet, here I come!

I had a little search online and quickly realized this ain't an easy recipe. Perhaps the ingredients aren't anything too special but there is a precise process there which takes the level of difficulty up a notch.

The one recipe that worked for me came in the form of a video from Joy of Backing (see video and recipe here). The best part of this was that the instructions were clear, the ingredient dosages were also given in grams and dl and, most importantly, there is that video there to show you "how to". Marvelous!!



I followed the steps and the result of the cake can be seen here in pictures:

First I made the two sponges, which will later form the four layers of the cake. Make sure you oil the bottom and place parchment paper so your cake can be removed easier.

Among the ingredients were flour, eggs, cacao powder, butter and a touch of red food color.

One of the important aspects of the recipe is the chilling of the sponge in the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour. It helps cut the layers later as the cake is meant to be quite moist and is not easy to cut if not chilled.

Making the buttercream was easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. It is better to have the ingredients at room temperature though because the cream cheese needs to be a bit soft. Having said that the whipped cream needs to be added cold!

Placing the buttercream on the chilled cake layers makes it easier.





Cover the top and sides of the cake and decorate to your taste
Your Red Velvet is ready to be placed in the fridge or served straight away.

Now, I just need a bit of feedback since I was not able to taste it :o
I hope people enjoyed it.

If you were amongst those who ate some of this cake, go on, be a good sport and give me some feedback ;)