La Burdick, Boston, MA, USA

This place is a chocolatier specialist, so as expected, their main products are pre-packaged chocolates of various flavours. However, they do have a good variety of chocolate desserts too. I didn't purchase any chocolates as that wasn't the reason of my visit.

Linzer torte

Let's start with the linzer torte, visually, it looked very appetising with all those roasted nuts and a good layer of raspberry in the middle. It was packed with almond flavour, but the hazelnut didn't come through strongly, in fact, you really had to search for the hazelnut flavour. The nuts on top were well roasted and crisp. However, the linzertorte for me would have to be more delicate and crumbly. This particular one was quite solid and the mixture may have been overworked, giving it more of a chewy and hard texture. The flavour was absolutely fine. 

The Burdick

The cake was quite solid, and was not as moist and soft as I had expected. The rum flavour came through nicely and complemented the flavour well. The design was simple and effective. The structure was held very well for ALL of the cakes there and they all looked very attractive. However, I suspect the structure of all the cakes were so sturdy because the cake itself was harder and less likely to collapse . I'm definitely someone who would go for taste before appearance. Though, saying that, the cake was good, but is it good enough to inherit the name of the shop? Personally, I don't think it is.

Mocha cake

Very similar to the burdick in terms of structure and texture. The sponge had a very close texture, but because of the fact each layer is sliced so thin, you may not notice, especially if you had a soft layer of cream/mousse in between the layers. The major problem of this cake is the stiff coffee cream. It was too hard, perhaps beaten too much. A good soft cream would hide the downfall of the sponge, but this cream couldn't do that because it was very hard itself. Despite saying that, the aroma and taste from the coffee was very good and it was lovely. If the texture itself can be improved slightly, this will be a very good cake.

Lemon and chocolate cake

I've said it before and I will say it again, lemon and chocolate go very nicely together and this cake was a delight, flavour wise. Texture on the other hand, suffered the same problems as the ones I mentioned above. The lemon cream here is softer and did in fact mask the downfall of the cake somewhat. This is definitely worth trying and I did feel I wanted more after finishing it.

Overall impression: 6/10
The burdick: 6/10
mocha cake: 6.5/10
chocolate lemon cake: 7/10
Linzertorte: 5.5/10