After a long corporate career, in 2010 award-winning cake designer, Rebecca Allen-Pugh, founded Apple Tree Cake Design. She is based in the Essex countryside, where she lives with her husband and their three beautiful Cocker Spaniels; Misty, Purdey & Jasper.
With a Swiss Master Baker in the family, she was exposed to the wonderful delights of the kitchen at an early age and so her love affair with it began. Specialising in sugar flowers, she combines beautifully intricate designs with classical and contemporary finishes. The emphasis is as much on the decoration as the cake within; she ensures she sources the finest, organic, and fair-trade ingredients for her clients’ cakes and teams those with meticulous attention to detail in the design and decoration, resulting in countless rave reviews on her work.
“I’m so passionate about creating art through cake and I believe that not only should a wedding cake look stunning, but it should taste delectable, too. To achieve this requires great care. Being foodies and animal-lovers, provenance and animal welfare is particularly important to us, hence only the best ingredients will do from suppliers who care.”
“Sugar flowers are my favourite things to make. Particular favourites will always be the timeless and delicate David Austin style roses. Each cake I make is bespoke and I love getting to know my clients better and finding out all about their wedding plans. It’s those details that I take into consideration during the design process which help me visualise, draw, and create a perfect, unique cake for their day. I still get goose bumps when a design comes together and I never tire of that exciting feeling!”
Her creativity doesn’t stop at cakes; “When I’m not busy in the kitchen, I like to cook for my family, paint with watercolours, make jewellery, and tend to our flower and vegetable gardens. I have a love of ceramics, too, and I used to have a pottery studio. I now collect pottery and contemporary art. I cherish long walks with my husband and our dogs, and we love to get away to the coast for long holidays in the autumn. With the dogs, of course!”
Rebecca won the award for the Best Wedding Cake Designer for the East of England at The Wedding Industry Awards in 2016 and 2019, and has also been listed as one of the UK Top 50 Wedding Cake Designers for many consecutive years.
“I have been blessed with creating wedding cakes for so many wonderful people and I look forward to all those creations I’ve yet to make. To get out of bed every morning and do what I love… that’s very special.”
