Line a baking sheet for your shortbread biscuits.

Cream together the butter and sugar to start making your shortbread. Add the food colouring until you reach your desired shade. The biscuits will darken only slightly in the oven.

Add the flour and mix in until smooth. Don’t overdo it as you need leeway for moulding.

Using my pictures or photos of the real Craigh na Dun as reference, shape your biscuits into the stones. The thicker they are, the wider they will end up after baking due to the butter. This will make for a delicious biscuit though! If you plan on making them thinner to avoid this, you’ll have to keep an eye on them during baking so they don’t overbake. Try to shape your biscuits without working the dough too much as you could end up with tough biscuits.

Once shaped, lay them out flat with ample space in between on the baking tray and chill for at least 1 hour in the fridge. Do not stand the biscuits as you envision doing so when decorating, they will lose their shape when baking!

While your biscuits are chilling, make your cake.

Mix the coffee and boiling water together and set aside to cool.

Weigh your eggs out in their shells – as close to 400g as you can. Either slightly under or slightly over is fine! You just want to weigh out everything else according to the exact weight that your eggs are.

Cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.

One at a time, add the eggs and beat in until combined.

Add the cooled coffee and beat in until combined.

Add the flour and mix in – be careful so not to knock the air out of your batter.

Finally, chop the walnuts to your desired size and fold them in gently.

Split the batter equally into the two tins and bake for 45 – 50 minutes or until baked through. The sponges will be ready when a cocktail stick comes out clean; the surface springs back when pressed on and you don’t hear a bubbling/crackling sound when you listen to them.

Once baked, leave to cool in the tins for 10 or so minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

While your cakes are cooling, your biscuits should be ready to bake. At the same temperature, bake your shortbread for 15 – 20 minutes. Check after 15 minutes if they are particularly thin. They will be ready when they are slightly cracked and ‘dry’ looking on the surface.

Take them out and leave them to continue baking and then cool on the tray.

Whilst everything is cooling, make your buttercream. Mix together the coffee and boiling water and set aside to cool.

Beat together the butter and sugar. Add the cooled coffee mix and beat again until incorporated.

Take a couple of tablespoons of the buttercream and put in a separate bowl. This will be your wildflower mix.

Using the coffee buttercream, build your cake. Lay one layer and spread a good amount of the buttercream over the top of it. Place the second layer over the top and spread a thin layer of buttercream – make this more of a crumb coat as this will help you ‘grass’ stick.

Add the green food colouring into the rest of the buttercream in your main bowl. Do this little by little and beat in until you achieve the green tint that you desire.

Mix the purple food colouring (or your chosen colour) into the small bowl of buttercream until you reach the tint or shade that you desire.

Prepare two separate piping bags: one with the grass nozzle and one with a very small hole cut off. Fill the appropriate piping bags with each of the remaining buttercream mixes.

When the biscuits are completely cool, arrange them on the top of your cake and press down gently. Shortbread can break easily so be careful!

Pipe your grass all around and in between your shortbread biscuits. You can leave areas as bare patches if that’s what you want to do – you can make it a seasonal thing where some of the grass won’t have grown in.

Then, pipe your wildflowers on. I did this as simple dots as they are very small flowers – no need to complicate it!