1. Preheat the oven to 190°C. 2. Melt the butter and let it cool slightly. Whip the cream until soft peaks form. Beat the egg and sugars until fluffy, add almond essence, melted butter and whipped cream. 3. Mix together the dry ingredients. (If you do not have walnuts, hazelnuts or sugar cookies at hand, you can omit them or replace them with ground or chopped almonds.) Gently fold the dry ingredients into the batter. 4. Lightly butter eight small (90 ml / 3 fl. oz) cylindrical moulds and spoon the batter into them. Place the moulds on a baking sheet and bake the cakes for 15 - 20 minutes or when a cake tester/toothpick inserted in the middle of them comes out clean. 5. Meanwhile, prepare the sugar syrup and raspberry topping. Place the sugar, water and the alcohol of your choice into a small saucepan. Bring the mixture to the boil, so that the sugar melts and alcohol evaporates. Remove from heat and set aside. 6. Place the raspberries and sugar into another small pan, bring to the boil and cook gently until the sugar has melted and the berries are broken (about 15 minutes). Stir every now and then. Set aside to cool. The topping should be rather thick, let it boil for a little longer if it is too thin. 7. Take the hot cakes out of the oven, prick them with a toothpick, and drizzle the warm sugar syrup on top of them. Use all of the syrup. Let the cakes absorb the syrup for half an hour or longer. 8. When the cakes seem thoroughly moist, gently remove them from the moulds and flip them over. 9. If the bottoms of the cakes are uneven, cut them flat carefully, using a serrated knife, so that the cakes will stand straight. This is most easily done while the cakes are still inside the moulds. Cut by moving the knife along the rim of the mould. 10. Cut a small round hole on the top of cakes using a small teaspoon. Fill the holes with raspberry topping and let it set in refrigerator. 11. Meanwhile, prepare a very thick sugar icing by mixing a dash or water with icing sugar. Flavour the icing with a dash of almond essence. Pipe the icing around the raspberry topping on top of cakes. Let the sugar icing set and serve the cakes with coffee or tea. 12. Makes about 8 small cakes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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