Recipe wars: Brooke Bellamy dumped as more plagiarism allegations emerge after RecipeTin Eats claims

Perth Now

01-05-2025

The recipe wars threatening to tear apart Australia's food community have escalated with more cooks coming out to allege plagiarism and one of Australia's most well-known bakers being dumped as an ambassador.
The issue erupted on Tuesday when RecipeTin Eats founder Nagi Maehashi claimed Bake with Brooki's Brooke Bellamy had infringed her copyright by 'word-for-word' taking two of her recipes, including caramel slice, and using them in her latest best-selling book, Bake with Brooki.
Maehashi also alleged that baking queen Bellamy had taken recipes from other authors: 'including (from) a very well known, beloved cookbook author where the similarities are so extensive, dismissing it as a coincidence would be absurd.'
Maehashi doubled down on her claims in another Instagram post on Thursday that showed a side-by-side comparison of her caramel slice and Bellamy's.
Another food blogger has gone public to allege Bellamy had stolen one of her recipes, too.
US food blogger Sally McKenney, who founded Sally's Baking Addiction, claimed Bellamy had taken her best vanilla cake recipe.
'Nagi ... I'm so grateful you let me know months ago that one of my recipes — the best vanilla cake I've ever had, published by me in 2019 — was also plagiarised in this book and also appears on the author's YouTube channel,' McKenney said in an Instagram story.
'Original recipe creators who put in the work to develop and test recipes deserve credit — especially in a best-selling cookbook.'
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Nagi Maehashi, whose RecipeTin Eats website is one of Australia's most beloved recipe sites.
Credit: Instagram
Bellamy, who has more than a million followers online, has denied plagiarising any recipes.
She said she had been making the recipes at the centre of Maehashi's allegations — for caramel slice and baklava — for years before Maehashi published her takes on the favourites.
'I did not plagiarise any recipes in my book which consists of 100 recipes I have created over many years, since falling in love with baking as a child and growing up baking with my mum in our home kitchen.
She said she had offered to remove both of Maehashi's recipes from future reprints to prevent 'further aggravation'.
Adding to the drama, it has been revealed that Bellamy has now been dumped as an ambassador for the federally funded 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.'
Published by Penguin Random House, Bake with Brooki, which retails for nearly $50 a book, sold 92,849 copies in less than six months, equating to $4.6m in sales.
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Brooke Bellamy says she has been attacked online amid claims of stolen recipes. (Jono Searle/AAP PHOTOS)
Credit: AAP
An analysis of a YouTube video by Bellamy outlining the recipe and McKenney's published version by 7NEWS showed Bellamy also referring to her cake as 'the best ever vanilla cake'.
Hers uses ingredients that are only slightly different from McKenney's: a 3g difference in the amount of flour used and 5g in butter measurements and three large eggs and two extra egg whites, while Bellamy's requires four eggs.
McKenney's recipe also calls for 400g of granulated sugar, where as Bellamy's asks for a finer caster sugar, although the sugars can be substituted.
The ingredients are listed in a similar order and both recipes contain the same three-word note — 'Yes, a tablespoon!' — next to the measurement for vanilla extract.
In a twist, Ms Maehashi herself has now also come under fire, with celebrity chef Luke Mangan claiming she had not credited him appropriately for one of his recipes.
Her book contains the statement that 'the author and the publisher have made every effort to contact copyright holders for material used in this book'.
'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,' Mangan was quoted as saying in The Courier Mail.
'I wasn't even aware she had used my recipe.'
'She has credited my recipe, but I would have preferred a bigger mention and at least linking people to our website,' he said.
On Thursday, Maehashi released another statement on her Instagram page alongside an image of a direct comparison of the directions for caramel slice recipe that shows only small differences.
Ms Maehashi said she had not made her plagiarism claims lightly.
'I tried for almost 6 months, going back and forth with Penguin/Brooki. I hired lawyers.
'I also did it knowing it would open the doors floodgates to haters, and no control over what the press will say.
'I have nothing to gain out of speaking up except that I believe it's the right thing to do.
'I do not want their money. I didn't even ask for reimbursement of legal fees.'
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The caramel slice recipe comparison.
Credit: Instagram
The issue is expected to come back into the spotlight next week with Maehashi's RecipeTin Eats book and Baking with Brooki both shortlisted at the Australian book industry awards in Melbourne.
Bellamy and Penguin Random House have been approached for comment.