Ladies in the Field

HUNTING & FISHING NEVER TASTED SO SWEET

By Meredith Kay

It’s one thing to eat what you harvest, but it’s another thing to eat a redfish or a white-tailed deer for dessert. There is an incredibly talented lady deep in the heart of coastal South Texas who creates stunning and edible masterpieces for those who love to hunt and fish.

Dusty Sinclair, “The Cake Taxidermist,” started Sugarbelle Sweets in 2014, and today she continues to create hyper realistic hunting and fishing themed cakes out of her kitchen in Flour Bluff. Her creations are truly works of art that require ingenuity, engineering, and artistry in equal parts, and she has customers all over the state of Texas who place orders for her creations, sometimes a year ahead of time.

Born in Mineral Wells, Dusty’s family moved to Port Aransas when she was young, so she grew up hunting and fishing with her family and her grandparents. It was her great aunt, Wilma Jo Loughmiller, who taught her about taxidermy and the art behind preserving animals. Dusty says, “Aunt Jo is lauded as the first known female taxidermist, and she taught me how to process an animal with skill and respect, and that you never stop learning.” Today, Dusty practices taxidermy as a hobby on animals that she harvests on her own, and she uses some of these same skills when sculpting the cakes into their unique shapes.

Dusty and her husband, Ryan, have three children. Their son, Landon (9), is already an avid hunter and fisherman, and his younger sisters, Hunter (5), and Peyton (6 months) aren’t too far behind him. The family feels strongly about raising their children to feel comfortable around guns and teaches them proper gun safety, how to put the right shot on an animal to take them respectfully and cleanly, and the importance of utilizing the whole animal.

her husband to teach their kids early, Dusty says, “We want our children to grow up understanding the importance of conservation and knowing where their food comes from. Hunting and fishing are traditions in our family, and I want to be able to pass the tradition down to them and to future generations. My best memories from childhood are of times that I was out on the water, hunting with my dad, and baking with my grandma. We want our children to have some of the same memories, so we try to spend time as much time together as a family as we can.

It was Dusty’s “Grammy”, Linda, who taught her to bake when she was just three years old. It started as a family tradition at the holidays. They would bake cookies and sweet treats that they would give to friends, family, and teachers, and she loved baking so much that she stuck with it, learning, and improving her techniques over the years. She even made her first tiered wedding cake for her sister’s wedding when she was just 19 years old.

Today, she makes two to three specialty cakes per week and delivers her creations all over the state with the help of her husband and some of his employees when needed. Some of her creations are massive and can weigh well over 100 pounds. Her sculpted cakes all begin with an interior support frame. Then the cake is added and sculpted into shape and finished with buttercream frosting and modeling chocolate before it is carefully hand painted to create a beautiful, realistic gastronomic masterpiece.

Sugarbelle Sweets specializes in sport fish and wildlife busts, but Dusty also does tiered, themed cakes, and the occasional full-body animal. She recently had a special commissioned order for a full-size cake replica of Reveille, the beloved mascot of Texas A&M, and she captured the Collie’s spirit perfectly. Her cakes are true works of art, and there isn’t any theme or shape that she isn’t willing to tackle. The bigger projects can take up to five days to put together, and she carefully plans and builds each cake herself. She is sometimes even tasked with making both the bride’s tiered wedding cake and the whimsical groom’s cake for weddings. The cakes come on handmade wooden serving boards and can last 3-5 days outside of the refrigerator.

When she isn’t in the kitchen baking and creating, you can usually find Dusty on the water fishing, or hunting with her family. Her husband is a fishing and hunting guide, and they love to spend time in the Corpus Christi area on their air boat gigging and bowfishing at night when there are fewer people, tourists, and boat traffic. “Each of the kids has his or her own protective earmuffs and they’ll often just fall asleep on the boat while we fish. Being on the water, or in the field hunting, is second nature to them, and it is so important to cultivate that family time.”

Dusty Sinclair is vivacious, and her kind nature and infectious energy is felt the minute you meet her. She is an incredibly impressive woman and a jack of many trades, and her cake artistry, as well as her commitment to her family, will leave a delicious impression on everyone lucky enough to meet her.