Baked apples, blueberry frozen yoghurt, lavender shortbread

Now this is the start of things to come. I have the ice-cream maker, so can make gelati, and I have Gordon Ramsey's Desserts book, so I can work through the repertoire of great classic desserts.
He has a recipe for Cumin shortbread, but I wanted to try it with lavender - just the smallest amount so it was fragrant but not soapy - lavender is really strong.

The shortbread was simply lovely. So light. I made 20 biscuits, and we just ate the lot. They were irresistable. I will try some with orange.

The apples were not as successful as I'd hoped. I chose braeburns and they were still quite firm after the cooking time. The one great thing was the peppercorns with the apple. The taste is phenomenal. Its subtle, but magically adds depth and warmth to the apple.
The recipe calls for brushing the apples with soft (but not melted butter) then rolling the apples in demerara sugar. I think I needed to embed the sugar better onto the apple, or use less butter, so that when they go in to bake,  the butter doesn't just slide off the apple. You want it to caramelise. I basted the apples in apple juice, with a touch of vin santo, and the taste is great, but I didn't get the golden caramelly surface I wanted. And at the end of the cooking time, the apples were too hard still. Some tweaks needed for next time.
I love the peppercorn idea tho' and loved getting the accompaniments together - the blueberry frozen yoghurt, and the divine shortbread. If I plan better which flavours go well together, this approach of dessert + gelati + biscuit is really fun.