Lavender Orange Crunch Cakes

This recipe was sent to us by one of our customers. We tried it, loved it and thought it was good enough to share with you!

Ingredients:

115g butter, softened
175g caster sugar
2 oranges
75g ground almonds
100g self-raising flour
3 large eggs, beaten
1 lemon
115g granulated sugar
A few stems of lavender blossom (or 1 tablespoon of Jersey Lavender Culinary Lavender), plus extra blossoms for garnish.

Preheat the oven to 200C/180C if fan assisted/350F Gas Mark 4.

Arrange 18 paper fairy cake cases on two patty-pan trays. Don't use the larger muffin paper cases, as they are too big.

Strip the lavender flowers from their stems and measure out 1 tablespoon (or use Jersey Lavender Culinary Lavender). Add them to the butter with the caster sugar and finely grated zest of the oranges. Beat until pale and fluffy.

Mix together the almonds and self-raising flour. Then, using a metal spoon, fold one-third of the beaten eggs into the butter, followed by a third of the almond mixture. Repeat the process twice, until all the eggs and all the almond mixture are folded into the butter. Finally, fold in 2 tbsp lemon juice and 2 tbsp orange juice. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases.

While the cakes are cooking, measure out a further 4 tbsp orange juice, and mix with 2 tbsp lemon juice. In a separate bowl, weigh out the granulated sugar.

Place the cooked cakes on a rack and quickly mix the orange and lemon juice into the granulated sugar and spoon over the piping hot surface of the cakes. Leave until cold, then garnish with the extra lavender flowers.

Enjoy!