The moment when Pege Yates, owner of St. Louis commercial confectioneries Sugar Art Supply and Never Forgotten Designs, went from big time to big time is hard to mark. It might have been when she landed a contract to provide glitter for a Walmart pancake syrup or began providing the Golden State Warriors with lollipops or when she delivered a custom birthday cake to Nelly on stage.
Yes, that Nelly, our Nelly. Yates, naturally, made him a sugarwork Gateway Arch, which he shattered by accident as he went to blow out his candles.
“He goes, ‘Oh, my god, I thought it was ice. I didn't know it was glass,’” Yates says, recalling laughing on stage and mouthing that it was actually sugar. “I’ve gotten to do some really unique things.”
Of all the special things Yates has done, right up at the top has been competing on a variety of Food Network shows. Her latest, a run on the station’s Holiday Wars, is set to premiere on Sunday, November 5.
Holiday Wars is an elimination competition show where teams of three bakers and confectioners create extravagant, edible holiday displays. The last team standing wins $25,000 — and glory.
“It was so fun,” she says. But she knows not everyone feels that way about high-pressure TV shoots: “There's tons of people that may be able to do amazing things, but you put a camera next to them, and they can't move.”
In 2019, Yates’ team didn’t last long. But she realized she was one of the people who could tune out the cameras and forget about the tons of producers hovering around. So when the network asked her to come back in 2022 for Halloween Wars, she said yes. Her team didn’t last long that time either — one of their teammates couldn’t handle the stress and walked off the set just 45 minutes before the end of an episode.
But Yates still had fun. So when she got asked to take part in this year’s Holiday Wars, she said yes again. This time, Yates is competing as part of team Frost Bite, which includes cake artist Brian Valencia, who won HBO’s Baketopia and is a cake decorator at Peppermill Spa Resort and Casino in Reno, Nevada; and cookie artist Cory Allen Jones, who is the owner of Sweet Evelyn’s in Unadilla, Georgia, and has been on previous Food Network shows. Yates was the team’s sugar artist.
“[It’s] an amazing team,” she says. “We worked our butts off. And, you know, you'll have to watch the end to see what happens because I can't say much, but it was definitely an amazing experience. I'm excited for everybody in St. Louis to watch it.”
Crafting elaborate sugarwork on the show was not the same as working in her commercial kitchen in St. Louis, Yates says. Even ignoring the clutter cameras, there’s just so much you can’t control.
For example, if she needed something like an extra spatula or pot, Yates had to ask for it and run off set looking for it. She was also trying to make extravagant works that she’d never done before on a single workspace with one induction burner. In addition, the crew wanted all the contestants to face a certain way whenever possible so their backs wouldn’t be to the cameras.
Then there was the human challenge of missing her family and just being tired from doing challenges on back-to-back days. But none of that took away from the experience, which Yates says was great and just about making a “really cool TV show.”
“I'm going to watch with my kids, and we're going to laugh about it, or we're gonna cry about it or we're gonna cheer about it, but it's making good TV,” she says. “And not to take anything personal. It's supposed to be fun, but there's also $25,000 on the line. So you're always thinking that too, like if I can really do my art right and be a team player. You know, can we make it to the end?”
Yates actually can’t reveal if her team made it to the end, so curious St. Louisans will just have to tune in on November 5. And if they can’t wait that long to see Yates’ work, she does have a walk-in retail location attached to her commercial kitchen at Sugar Art Supply (6060 Telegraph Road, Suite D, sugarartsupply.com).
Yates’ specialty is confectionery manufacturing, but she also occasionally teaches classes at that location; recently she did one for kids. But mostly, customers can stop in to pick up unique treats such as lollipops that sandwich custom edible images between crystal clear isomalt, Dalgona candy, edible glitter and more.
A mom of five in her 40s, Yates got into the business after the birth of her youngest. She always loved baking cakes at home, which offered a bit of consistency as she and her family moved frequently along with her husband’s job in the military. She constantly had to reinvent herself and find new work, but when they relocated to St. Louis, she turned to baking full time.
She started by making cakes and then realized she was getting too busy taking on all facets of their production. She decided to specialize in the decorations and other sugarwork, which led to what she’s doing today.
“I love creating things that make people go, ‘Oh my god, that is so cool,’” Yates says. “Like, ‘How in the world did you do that?’”
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