“The Cake Taxidermist:” Sugarbelle Sweets creates realistic animal cakes

Before becoming “the Cake Taxidermist,” Corpus Christi resident Dusty Sinclair learned to bake fresh pies using fruit on her grandmother’s farm.

Now Sinclair, a self-taught 33-year-old mom of three, specializes in creating hyper-realistic cake sculptures of animals and fish for weddings and events all over the country from her home kitchen.

Sinclair began making tiered wedding cakes after graduating from Port Aransas in 2008. She started Sugarbelle Sweets in 2014, beginning with small birthday cakes and cookies. She began specializing in large cakes for weddings and events in 2020 after creating one of her first sculpted deer cakes for a friend.

“It’s so embarrassing looking at it now because I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s horrible,” Sinclair said. “I thought it was so good at the time and so did everybody else. After that, it just kind of took off.”

Siobhan Allen, 38, has been a client for nearly a decade. As a former baker, Allen remembers giving Sinclair advice as she began transitioning to larger-scale cakes.

“I remember standing in the kitchen with her and I’m looking at this giant frame that her husband has built for the deer head and I’m like, ‘You can do this,” Allen said. “When I saw the cake that she had made, it blew my mind. There’s no one else that can do this.”

As a cottage food baker, Sinclair creates all of her cakes fresh to order from her home. The cakes are baked days ahead and frozen so they can be cut and shaped. For large animal cakes, an internal structure and custom keepsake board keep the cake from falling.

Sinclair decorates her cakes with buttercream and modeling chocolate, which has a clay-like consistency and hardens as it dries. After the chocolate dries, it can be hand painted and airbrushed for a hyper-realistic look. Decorating a large cake can sometimes take three days, Sinclair said.

“Every single thing that she has done is completely self-taught and she is above the level of talent of most people who are professionally trained pastry chefs and bakers,” Allen said. “She is what makes her business special… her personality, her tenacity, and her ability to do those things while raising children full-time.”

All of Sinclair’s cakes are inspired by her love for hunting and fishing. Her cakes feature game animals such as deer and elk; largemouth bass and blue marlin; and smaller creatures like armadillos and rattlesnakes. Her husband is a hunting and fishing guide in the Corpus Christi area. In high school, Sinclair would create art for big fishing tournaments.

“I love hunting and fishing in general,” Sinclair said. “It’s a big part of who we are as a family. We get to experience nature all the time, which I’m so happy and blessed with.”

As a self-taught baker, Sinclair learned to perfect the final touches to bring her sculptures to life through trial and error. Though reference photos help, Sinclair says her interest in taxidermy has helped her recognize the focal points that make a cake look real.

Sinclair began taxidermy as a hobby in 2021 using her family’s harvest. She learned from her great-great-great aunt, Wilma Loughmiller of Lampasas, Texas.

“She’s definitely helped me in a lot of aspects, like if I had a certain cake, she’d tell me the things she would have done a bit differently,” Sinclair said. “Originally, I didn’t know how to position the eyes. It’s so much more than just putting eyes on a cake. It’s for it to look real and tease your eye into making you think it’s an actual animal. She’s definitely been a big part of my journey to becoming better at what I do.”

Sinclair says her favorite creation to date is a wood duck birthday cake she made for her 10-year-old son, an avid duck hunter.

“Of course, I love doing all of the humongous animals and stuff… but that was probably my favorite cake out of all of the huge cakes that I’ve done because the colors of it and everything were so vibrant and beautiful,” Sinclair said. “He still has that cake in his room, and he has not cut into it. It looks just as good as the day I made it.”

Sinclair accepts order requests on her website www.sugarbellesweets.com.

Read more

South Texas activist pushed LULAC on equal rights for women in 1930s

Community Grocery: Downtown Corpus Christi to soon have its own supermarket

Find a 2023 summer camp in Corpus Christi for your kid

This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: The Cake Taxidermist: Sugarbelle Sweets makes realistic animal cakes