Two cookbook authors have accused TikTok influencer Brooke Bellamy of copying their recipes, as controversy swells around the Australian baker’s best-selling cookbook "Bake with Brooki".
Nagi Maehashi, the founder of the popular food website RecipeTin Eats, said Bellamy’s book includes recipes with “word-for-word similarities” to her own published work.
Maehashi, who runs a website attracting 45 million monthly page views and has authored two cookbooks, said she first became aware of the issue after a reader flagged “remarkable similarities” between her caramel slice recipe and the one in Bellamy’s book.
She later identified further overlaps with her baklava recipe and published a detailed side-by-side comparison on her website.
Photo: Instagram
Hours after Maehashi went public with her allegations, US author Sally McKenney also accused Bellamy of copying her vanilla cake recipe.
Bellamy, the owner of Brooki Bakehouse, which operates three Queensland branches and boasts over two million followers on TikTok, rejected the accusations. She said the book contains “100 recipes I have created over many years”, adding that one of the contested recipes predates Maehashi’s.
Maehashi said she had contacted Penguin Random House Australia, Bellamy’s publisher, but was met with what she described as legal intimidation after the publisher brought in lawyers.
“It feels like a blatant exploitation of my work,” she said. “To see them plagiarised and used in a book for profit, without permission, and without credit, doesn't just feel unfair.”
Maehashi has retained legal counsel and has sent formal notices to both Bellamy and Penguin.
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