THE BUBBLY TART
Hoppen Hierarchy:★★★⭑
District: Downtown
Bakery with Sweet Confections
Perfect For: Baked Goods; Casual Dining
Standout Dishes: Cookie Sammies; Cakesicles; Oreo Cheesecake Stuffed Red Velvet Cookies
Dessert and sugar are often considered to be attached at the hip, but as the confections at The Bubbly Tart prove, it doesn’t have to be that way.
Of course there’s sugar in the treats produced by this downtown bakery, but owner Chelsea Schroeder is very conscious about ensuring her offerings hit more than just the sweet profile of her guest’s palates.
“Don’t get me wrong, I like sugar, but I don’t want it to taste just sweet,” she said on the Restaurant Hoppen podcast. “I want people to actually enjoy the flavors of the stuff instead of just tasting sugar. I don’t just want to taste sugar when I eat dessert. I want to taste something else.”
The Bubbly Tart balances flavors rather than punching tastebuds with sweetness. Not only is there less sugar in the bakery’s signature buttercream, but most confections have another flavor to play with the sweetness.
Cookies are adorned with flecks of salt. The cheesecakes have a forward tang, tarts get a burst of citrus from lemon, and gooey butter bars are studded with tart blueberries. The Bubbly Tart finds the balance between sweetness and subtlety.
Don’t get me wrong, though; there’s plenty of sugar in these desserts, and it’s part of why The Bubbly Tart is one of Omaha’s best bakeries.
Located on Leavenworth St just off I-480, The Bubbly Tart is more than just a grab-and-go dessert shop. It’s a large space with plenty of room to sit and enjoy some sweets or coffee, and the display cases are stocked with just about every kind of dessert imaginable. With everything from cookies to cheesecakes, macarons, cookie dough cups, stuffed cookies, and the infamous trash cakes, it’s a dessert lover’s paradise.
And while it’s a joy to walk in and peruse the daily options, you can also place customer orders for wedding cakes, number and letter cakes, and even charcuterie boards at The Bubbly Tart.
When Chelsea enrolled in culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu (Los Angeles), she didn’t plan on taking the dessert route. But she found the pastry classes came easier to her and, after spending more than a decade working at a catering company in Omaha, broke off to start her own venture in 2019.
Omaha is lucky that she did. Examining the display case at The Bubbly Tart is equal parts pleasure and torture; the former because everything looks incredible, the latter because it’s not possible to eat it all.
The Fudge Brownies are dense but maintain a soft texture. They’re rich, moist, and possess a boatload of chocolate, and that’s before the application of creamy chocolate frosting. If you find me 3 better chocolate brownies in Omaha, I’ll give you $50.
The Chocolate Chip Cookies have olive oil in the batter, so while the exterior of the cookies has a nice crisp, the interior is rich and buttery. The sweetness is complemented by coarse salt, which adds texture and balance.
The only way to improve upon these delicious, moist cookies is by taking two of them and adding The Bubbly Tart’s velvety buttercream frosting between them to form one of the famous Cookie Sammies. The chocolate chip version, with a luscious vanilla buttercream, is fantastic, but The Bubbly Tart will make a sandwich out of just about any cookie flavor.
But The Bubbly Tart doesn’t stop there with the cookie innovation. For a real spin on the wild side, get an Oreo Cheesecake Stuffed Red Velvet Crinkle Cookie, which adds a gooey, creamy cheesecake and bits of crunchy Oreo cookies to the chewy, chocolate-forward red velvet cookie.
The S’mores Cakesicle is what would result if your favorite campfire-side treat and a cake pop had a baby. The Cupcakes are delicate, moist, and have the proper frosting-to-cake ratio.
An added bonus to The Bubbly Tart’s desserts: most come in individual sizes. You don’t need to commit to a massive dessert—most are perfectly comfortable to snack on or devour after dinner without feeling overwhelmed or loaded down.
One of the downside to most bakeries is that, due to their early-morning nature, they close early, so most people have to go before work or on their lunch break to appease their sweet tooth.
Not so with The Bubbly Tart. Open until 8 or 9 PM most nights, you can grab your sweet treats after work if you need to.
Great as sugar is in dessert, a flavor balance is more than welcome after dinner. If you’re looking for confections that will deliver sweetness without bludgeoning you with sugar, The Bubbly Tart is a fantastic option.