Food bloggers accuse influencer of plagiarizing their recipes for her bestselling cookbook

The hype around a bestselling cookbook about sweets has turned sour, as its author has been accused of recipe plagiarism.

On April 29, Nagi Maehashi, food blogger behind RecipeTin Eats, accused fellow Aussie and influencer Brooke Bellamy of plagiarizing recipes in her book “Bake With Brooki.” And, in the time since, another baker has spoken out with their own accusation against Bellamy.

Maehashi, made the allegations in a post on her website and on her Instagram, where she has 1.6 million followers, publishing side-by-side comparisons of her and Bellamy’s recipes for caramel slice and baklava.

“Bake With Brooki” was published in October 2024 by Penguin Random House Australia and has sold 69,000 copies as of March, according to Nielsen BookScan.

“To me, the similarities between the recipes in question are far too specific and detailed to be dismissed as coincidence,” Maehashi wrote on her website. “I’m speaking up because staying silent protects this kind of behaviour. Profiting from plagiarised recipes is unethical — even if it is not copyright infringement — and undermines the integrity of the entire book.”

She explains in the post that in November 2024, a reader emailed her to say that they noticed “remarkable similarities” between hers and Bellamy’s recipe for caramel slice, a dessert similar to millionaire’s shortbread. 

Side-by-side images in Maehashi’s post show that the ingredients, measurements and instructions appear to be nearly identical. She provides the same type of imagery for a baklava recipe.

“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.

Neither Penguin Random House Australia nor its American counterpart responded to TODAY.com’s request for comment.

Maehashi says that when she contacted the publisher, its legal team sent her the following message: “Our client respectfully rejects your clients’ allegations and confirms that the recipes in the BWB Book were written by Brooke Bellamy.”

And Bellamy herself denies the claims made by Maehashi.

“I do not copy other people’s recipes,” Bellamy tells TODAY.com through legal counsel. “Like many bakers, I draw inspiration from the classics, but the creations you see at Brooki Bakehouse reflect my own experience, taste, and passion for baking, born of countless hours of my childhood spent in my home kitchen with Mum.”

It’s unclear whether recipes are protected under Australia’s copyright law, according to Broadsheet. While the taste or a recipe created from memory cannot be protected, “particular written explanations of recipes” can.

Sally McKenney, who runs the recipe blog Sally’s Baking Addiction, posted support for Maehashi and added to her claims in an Instagram story.

“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 plagiarized in this book and also appears on the author’s YouTube channel,” she wrote. “Original recipe creators who put in the work to develop and test recipes deserve credit — especially in a best-selling cookbook.”

As of May 2, screenshots from McKenney’s website and Bellamy’s YouTube channel show that the measurements and ingredients for a vanilla cake, including one for “1 tbsp vanilla extract (yes, a Tablespoon!)” appear to be nearly identical.

McKenney, Maehashi or lawyers for Maehashi did not immediately respond to TODAY.com’s request for comment.

Bellamy tells TODAY.com that the days since the allegations came out have been “extremely overwhelming,” adding that media has camped outside her home and business. “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,” Bellamy continues. “My priority right now is to ensure the welfare of the fantastic team at Brooki Bakehouse and that of my family.”

Bellamy has since set her Instagram account to private and turned off comments on her most recent post on TikTok. On her YouTube and other TikTok posts, however, users have been calling her out in the comments.

“Whose recipe is this one?” commented one YouTube user on a video for red velvet cupcakes.

On May 1, Maehashi posted a follow-up video on Instagram asking people to curb the vitriol directed at Bellamy.

“Now, I know I’ve made serious allegations, but this does not justify the personal attacks that I’ve seen online against Brooke Bellamy. I do not support it, and I’m asking you to stop,” she says. “Fundamentally, at the end of the day, we’re talking recipes, and this is a business dispute … you got to be respectful about this, you know? It’s the RecipeTin way.”