Recipetin eats founder begs fans to stop attacking Brooke Bellamy as the cook shuts down her social media amid plagiarism row

Daily Mail​

01-05-2025

Cookbook author and blogger Nagi Maehashi has taken a stand against 'trolls' who have been attacking Brooke Bellamy amid their plagiarism row.
Maehashi sparked a firestorm when she alleged former travel blogger-turned-baker Bellamy copied two of her recipes for caramel slice, and baklava in her book, Bake with Brooki.
On Thursday the row took a surprise turn when Maehashi posted a video to Instagram betting her fans and supporters to leave Bellamy alone.
'Please stop the trolling' the Australian cook said in the clip.
'Now I know I've made serious allegations, but this does not justify the personal attacks that I've seen online against Brooke Bellamy' she continued.
'I do not support it, and I'm asking you to stop. I know that this is just a very, very small percentage of people online. I know the majority of people are good, fun, normal people.
'You know, share your opinions, have heated debates, support Brookie, support me, disagree with both of us, think we're pathetic, whatever you want, but just keep it respectful, no trolling, no hateful comments.'
Maehashi went on: 'Fundamentally, at the end of the day, we're talking recipes, and this is a business dispute.
'You know, these are legal allegations that I've made against Penguin, a corporate, allegations made by my company.
'So it just, we've gotta be respectful about this, you know, it's the Recipe Tin way.'
It comes after online baking sensation Bellamy locked down her social media amid a furious backlash over the plagiarism row which has blown up around her.
In the wake of the blockbuster claims, other chefs and authors have also now come forward with similar allegations.
US-based baker Sally McKenney of Sally's Baking Addiction fame claimed on Instagram that Bellamy had also copied her vanilla cake recipe after Maehashi reached out to alert her about it.
'Original recipe creators who put in the work to develop and test recipes deserve credit – especially in a best-selling cookbook,' McKenney said.
Maehashi sparked a firestorm when she alleged former travel blogger-turned-baker Bellamy copied two of her recipes for caramel slice, and baklava in her book, Bake with Brooki. Bellamy has denied the allegations
Pregnant mother-of-one Bellamy rejected the claim, posting to Instagram that her book Bake with Brooki is made up of recipes 'created over many years'.
She has denied the plagiarism allegations and insisted she has been making the caramel slice recipe since 2016, re-posting a snap of the creation she made at that time.
Bellamy has now bunkered down at her $3.6million three-bedroom home in Brisbane and issued a plea for privacy as she turned her personal Instagram account to private after trolls flooded her pages with savage attacks over the row.
'The past 24 hours have been extremely overwhelming,' she said in a statement.
'I have had media outside my home and business, and have been attacked online. It has been deeply distressing for my colleagues and my young family.
'While baking has leeway for creativity, much of it is a precise science and is necessarily formulaic. Many recipes are bound to share common steps and measures: if they don't, they simply don't work.
'My priority right now is to ensure the welfare of the fantastic team at Brooki Bakehouse and that of my family.'
Penguin has also denied the allegations, saying via their lawyers: 'Our client respectfully rejects your client's allegations and confirms that the recipes in [Bake with Brooki] were written by Brooke Bellamy', according to Maehashi.
Award-winning chef and restaurateur Luke Mangan joined the furore but turned the tables and accused RecipeTin Eats of not crediting him properly for one of his dishes.
He said that while Maehashi did provide a footnote credit to him for a butter chicken recipe she had used online and in her book, she should have got in touch to say she was using it, and added a link to his website.
'I couldn't say off the top of my head whether she did reach out and ask permission or not, but I would have thought, in general, you would contact the person whose recipe it was,' he said.
'All of my recipes in my (seven) books are copyrighted, we own them, they are our intellectual property.'
Maehashi adapted Mangan's butter chicken recipe - adding salt and a low-fat cream option - and referenced the chef in a footnote online.
Mangan was not mentioned in the print copy but it did feature a QR code linking to the online credited version.
Maehashi's book includes the statement 'the author and the publisher have made every effort to contact copyright holders for material used in this book'.
Things took a further twist on Wednesday after Bellamy was dumped as an ambassador for a federal government-funded girls business program over the row.
She was due to be announced as an VIP figurehead for the Academy for Enterprising Girls.
'Brooke Bellamy was recently engaged to conduct a small number of promotional activities for the Academy for Enterprising Girls program over the coming months,' an academy spokesman told The Daily Telegraph.
'While we make no legal assessment on the allegations aired in the media, we have informed Bellamy that we will not move forward with the engagement at this time.'
Both Penguin and Bellamy strenuously deny the allegations.
'I did not plagiarise any recipes in my book which consists of 100 recipes I have created over many years,' Bellamy said on Tuesday night.
'In 2016, I opened my first bakery. I have been creating my recipes and selling them commercially since October 2016.
'On March 2020, RecipeTin Eats published a recipe for caramel slice. It uses the same ingredients as my recipe, which I have been making and selling since four years prior.'
Maehashi has since countered with a internet webarchive screenshot showing her same recipe from April 29, 2016.
While Bellamy insisted she did not copy the recipes, she 'immediately offered to remove both from future reprints to prevent further aggravation'.
In Maehashi's Instagram post, she accused Bellamy of 'profiting' from the allegedly plagiarised recipes.
Maehashi claims she first raised concerns with Penguin in December.
'I put a huge amount of effort into my recipes. And I share them on my website for anyone to use for free,' she said.
'To see them plagiarised (in my view) and used in a book for profit, without credit, doesn't just feel unfair. It feels like a blatant exploitation of my work.'
Maehashi is the founder of popular website, RecipeTin Eats, which has 1.5 million followers on Instagram.
She is also the author of award-winning cookbooks Dinner and Tonight.
Bellamy quickly became a global sensation after sharing videos on TikTok, which receive millions of views each day.
She is best known for her cookies and has opened pop-up stores in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Her Bake With Brooki is a bestselling cookbook published by Penguin in October last year and retails for $49.99.
Maehashi and Bellamy could face off next week at the Australian book industry awards in Melbourne, where their respective bestselling cookbooks have both been nominated for the 2025 Illustrated Book of the Year.