Karlik Pastry

Bakery: Karlik Bakery
Address: 762 Barton St E, Hamilton ON
Website: n/a
Style: Polish
Price: $$$

Karlik Pastry is a semi-commercial bakery running out of Hamilton and servicing the surrounding areas and parts of the GTA and while in Hamilton, I told the brothers to pick something for me to try, even though you can also get a lot of their cakes at Starsky, for example ($17.99/kg). In fact, the first time I tried Karlik was quite awhile ago; they're the (only) ones that bake the Mazurki for Starsky at Easter time. So, we got one ($9.99, I believe) then and yeah, though not really an amazing cake to begin with (I'm not a huge fan of crumbly dough), I still associate this marizpan-filled cake with Easter. ;) And it was the Mazurek that made me want to try something else from them...

Anyways, when the brothers went, they brought back four types of cake, most of which were okay, although nothing was really *amazing*. Out of the four cakes, the cheesecake was probably the best: a thin layer of jello on top, cheesy mass, a layer of strawberry jam at the bottom and soft dough. The cake was pretty fresh and tasty, but it was really hard to keep together. The cheese was quite crumbly. I mean, it was pretty good, but now, I think the ones to beat in terms of cheesecake are Jaswoj. And Karlik didn't beat them. ;)

Next up was a piece of makowiórek (a torte-like cake with a layer of poppy seed and coconuts sandwiched in the middle of two generous layers of cream and nilla-crackers topped with more coconut and chocolate drizzle. This is a favourite of my brother's, but again, he said that although it was good, Kraków Deli (courtesy of Double W) makes em' better.

We also got another torte-like cake with alternating chocolate and vanilla cakes with thin layers of cream and jam in the middle, poured over with chocolate glaze, and finally, an interesting slab cake with dough, raisins, dried fruit, plum jam and thick, hard layer of meringue (why is this photo so blurry? -_-). No one was really thrilled with either of these. The chocolate cake was... just that, and no one being a fan of meringue, everyone pretty much scraped off the top and ate the cake with just the dried fruit, raisins and jam. In taste, it was pretty good and, for some reason, strangely chewy, which was a highlight, but the whole meringue thing wasn't for me.

Overall, Karlik is... average. There aren't so many Polish baking options in Hamilton, so maybe it's a good option that's, in general, fairly tasty, but comparing it to other bakeries, it isn't so great. And seeing that they came back with four small-ish slices (the biggest could be divided into two) and paid over $20 for it, it came across for me as quite pricey, especially when a) they bought everything at their actual store versus other sellers, b) cheaper cakes can be found in other delis/bakeries. So, in a sense, I was a little disappointed, although at the same time, I can't say I disliked anything. It was good, but not the best. ^^;;;

Rating: **1/2