Beyond the bachelor: Bubble Cream’s Edmonton expansion is going to be sweet

Jason Phung:   Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering  

Steven Chen:   Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering (in progress)  

Vincent Cheng:   University of Guelph alumnus; Bachelor of Engineering  

Bubble Cream is bringing Hong Kong-style treats with a twist to Edmonton. While working together in the same industrial and environmental machinery company, Phung, Chen, and Cheng were first brought together by their common desire to deliver products to customers that could directly uplift how people felt. After plenty of brainstorming and experimentation, Phung, Chen, and Cheng created Bubble Cream, a dessert company fusing Eastern and Western tastes with unique sweet treats. Research in New York, London, and other metropolitan hubs revealed that the dessert was quickly gaining momentum in other cities and had not yet been brought to Edmonton, and the trio’s gears began to turn. “We (wanted) to make something that’s ours, that we have control of,” Cheng says. “We all kind of have an entrepreneurial heart — and we know what we want to do.”

The company’s name comes from its primary product, the eponymous “bubble cream”: an egg waffle — a common Hong Kong street food typically sold in paper bags and eaten plain — paired with ice cream and decorated with a showering of different toppings, including fruit, sprinkles, and Pocky sticks. The waffles are made using special machines and a custom batter created by the proprietors themselves, and from there, it’s about what will taste best. After debuting the dessert at the Alberta Aviation Museum’s night market in June 2017, Phung, Chen, and Cheng were taken aback by the positive reception to their product, with lines snaking in front of their booth. “We started with just a few machines and were overwhelmed by the amount of support we got from people,” Phung says.

Bubble Cream has since brought its product and its miniature adaption, Bubble Cream Juniors, to events like the St. Albert Farmers’ Market and Taste of Edmonton. The company has been expanding into weddings, birthdays, and private event bookings and hopes to debut a full-service Bubble Cream food truck by late spring 2018.