“Art becomes eternal when it remembers its roots.”
Through royal icing, Prachi Dhabal Deb transforms heritage into edible architecture: intricate yet restrained, ceremonial yet deeply personal.
From a quiet Pune studio, this three-time World Record holder transforms royal icing into a lyrical expression of Indian culture. Each swirl of sugar becomes an ode to heritage; each delicate pattern, a conversation between craft and devotion. Her creations are more than culinary art.
They are edible archives of India’s soul.
Sugar becomes her medium, culture her muse.
What begins as a sugar evolves into a palatial façade, a textile translated into lace-like finesse, a motif borrowed from memory and reimagined in relief. Prachi’s work does not chase trends. It converses with time.
Rooted in Indian aesthetics and executed with architectural precision, her creations blur the boundary between confectionery and craft, where Mughal jaalis, temple carvings, folk borders, and royal textiles find new life in sugar and symmetry.
Not decoration. Interpretation.
Every creation begins with research: a textile, a monument, a cultural rhythm. The process is slow, deliberate, and almost meditative. Royal icing is piped the way stone is carved: patiently, reverently, with respect for proportion and pause.
Her art draws deeply from the textures and rhythms of India’s weaves. Banarasi brocades, Paithani silks, Chanderi translucence; each finds a new voice in sugar. Translating these textiles into icing demands both science and surrender.
Technique serves intention. Ornamentation serves meaning.
She studies the warp and weft, the glint of zari, the balance of motif and negative space, before piping them into lace-like patterns that shimmer with life. Among her most admired creations are her Patola-inspired needlepoint piping, the Banarasi theme cake, and a 100 kg royal-icing replica of Milan Cathedral; each a testament to architectural discipline and spiritual grace.
An artist shaped by patience.
Prachi’s journey into royal icing is guided less by spectacle and more by discipline. A devotion to detail, balance, and restraint. Her work reflects a quiet confidence: one that trusts craftsmanship over excess, depth over immediacy.
A former financial analyst who found her calling in fine artistry, Prachi discovered in royal icing the same discipline, patience, and geometry that define India’s classical crafts. What began as curiosity became her vocation: a pursuit of precision and poetry. She pioneered vegan royal icing, a conscious evolution that opened the craft to global and ethical appreciation. Today, her formulation is used across continents, celebrated for its purity and purpose.
Beyond the Studio
She works at the intersection of edible art, cultural storytelling, and sculptural design, creating pieces that are as contemplative as they are celebratory.
Borrowed from stone, translated into sugar.
Prachi’s journey has intertwined art with nationhood. Collaborations with the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Textiles have allowed her to interpret patriotism through edible art, from tricolour cookies celebrating unity to handloom-inspired confections honouring Indian weavers. Her devotion has earned her three World Book of Records titles and honours at Oxford University and the UK Parliament. She has also been appointed as an Associate Artist at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. As Head Judge for Cakeology and the Indian Cake Awards, and as the first Indian Ambassador and Senior Judge at the International Cake Show Australia, she continues to nurture the next generation of sugar artists.
Where sugar remembers civilisation.
Every line she pipes carries reverence, for heritage, for patience, for the unseen hands that built India’s aesthetic legacy. Through her art, tradition becomes timeless, and culture, ever luminous. For Prachi, each masterpiece is a prayer in sugar, delicate, fleeting, yet eternal in spirit.
Behind the acclaim lies quiet conviction.
“Sustainability in art begins with empathy,” she says. The shift to vegan royal icing reflects not just innovation, but conscience, a belief that beauty must coexist with compassion. Even amid accolades from Femina, Forbes, Vogue and many Indian and global publications, Prachi remains grounded in her studio, where creation itself is the reward.