Flourless citrus almond cake with orange blossom cream, griddled peaches, honeycomb and heather flowers

A birthday cake for my little sister Lizzie who is turning 30!  The cake is flourless, made with ground almonds instead, and flavoured with lemon, orange and grapefruit zest.  It's topped with an orange blossom whipped cream, peaches and plums scorched on a griddle pan, toasted almonds and heather flowers, and home-made honeycomb.

Honey and heather flower roasted plums

I recently posted a shortbread recipe I'd created with heather flowers that I'd found in the local farmers market. This morning I decided to use them again, this time with plums roasted in the oven for a few minutes with a honey caramel. I adapted the recipe from Joy the Baker's recipe for honey roasted plums with thyme. This takes just a few minutes to make and is a fantastic recipe for breakfast or for a quick dessert.

Heather flower, honey, whisky and orange shortbread

As the friands I made today only used the whites of three eggs, I had an excuse to make something up to use the yolks. On Sunday at the farmers market I bought a small packet of dried heather flowers, and this was a chance to experiment with them. Not really sure of their uses, I decided to go with a Scottish theme and make shortbread - and sticking with this idea, added some whisky and honey (and a bit of orange zest).  When they came out of the oven, they smelled gorgeous but looked a bit pasty, so I quickly made a glaze in the microwave with the juice of half the orange I'd zested and a little honey, and brushed it over the top while they were still warm.  These are lovely on their own, but will also go well with some fresh fruit and maybe a little syllabub of whipped cream, whisky, orange and honey.  If you can't find heather flowers, I think this would work just as well with lavender.