Plagiarism allegations are growing against a popular Australian baker.
On Tuesday, April 29, RecipeTin Eats founder Nagi Maehashi accused fellow Australian food influencer Brooke Bellamy of publishing plagiarized recipes. Maehashi shared a post on her food blog called “When you see your recipes in a $4 million book” outlining her months-long private battle with Bellamy and her cookbook’s publisher, Penguin Random House Australia.
“I have made copyright infringement allegations against Penguin Random House Australia, claiming there are plagiarised recipes in the bestselling book Bake with Brooki, including two from my website and other authors, including cookbooks,” Maehashi wrote, saying that the publishing house denied the allegations and Bellamy had not responded.
The saga began in November 2024, said Maehashi — who added that the language in her post “feel a little clunky…because of legal constraints.” Back in the fall, a reader wrote that Bellamy’s 2024 cookbook included a caramel slice recipe with “remarkable similarities” to Maehashi’s. Upon further inspection, Maehashi found that her baklava recipe looked very similar to one included in Bake with Brooki.
Maehashi compared the recipes side-by-side in her post and wrote, “While recipes can resemble one another, because there are only so many ways some recipes can be made, the precision and detail in the similarities in this case are, in my opinion, far too strong to be a co-incidence.”
Maehashi wrote to the publishers in December but was allegedly not thrilled with their response. “Disappointingly, instead of engaging in civil discussions with me, Penguin brought in lawyers and resorted to what felt to me legal intimidation,” she wrote.
Plus, in the months since their conversations started, more allegedly plagiarized recipes from other bakers have come into question. Maehashi’s post did not name any of these chefs nor recipes. But, following her revealing blog post, Sally’s Baking Addiction’s Sally McKenney revealed that she is involved in the drama.
“Nagi, you know how much I admire and support you — and 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 [allegedly] plagiarized in this book and also appears on the author’s YouTube channel,” McKenney wrote to her 1 million Instagram followers via Instagram Stories, according to CNN. “Original recipe creators who put in the work to develop and test recipes deserve credit — especially in a best-selling cookbook.”
Bellamy shared a statement on her Instagram Stories on Tuesday, April 29. In the lengthy response, she wrote, “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 continued, sharing a 2016 photo of her bakery’s products and circling an item that looks like caramel slices. “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.”
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Despite Maehashi’s comment that Bellamy has not responded to her letters, the accused chef wrote, “I immediately offered to remove both recipes from future reprints to prevent further aggravation, which was communicated to Nagi swiftly through discussions. I have great respect for Nagi and what she has done in recent years for cooks, content creators and cookbooks in Australia – especially as a fellow female entrepreneur.”
Per Maehashi’s post, a new edition of Bellamy’s cookbook has been released with a different caramel slice recipe than the allegedly plagiarized version.
Neither Maehashi, Bellamy, McKenney nor Penguin Random House Australia replied to PEOPLE’s request to comment.
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