Third cookbook author named in Brooke Bellamy, Nagi Maehashi recipe dispute

A third cookbook author has been named in allegations a bakery owner copied recipes for her $4.6m book, which she strenuously denies.

RecipeTin Eats founder Nagi Maehashi revealed a third cookbook author has been “blantantly” plagiarised by baker Brooke Bellamy.

Brisbane bakery owner and author of $4.6m selling cookbook Bellamy has been accused of copying recipes, which she strenuously denies and has described the backlash she has faced since accusations first emerged as “deeply distressing”.

Fellow author and cook Maehashi first accused Bellamy of plagiarising two recipes in her best-selling book, Bake with Brooki, as well as from “other authors” — which the RecipeTin Eats founder initially did not name.

After the allegations were shared publicly on April 29, famed US baker, Sally McKenney, then also claimed that a vanilla cake recipe from a book she had published in 2019 was used in Bellamy’s 2024 cookbook.

Now, Maehashi has confirmed to Good Food, for which she is a columnist, that the late Bill Granger is another author she believes has been plagiarised.

“It is so blatant to me that the wording in the method part of the recipe is copied almost exactly. To me, it is the biggest and strongest example of plagiarism that I have seen by this author,” Maehashi says.

Brooke Bellamy is under fire for allegedly copying recipes in her Bake With Brooki cookbook, which she denies. Picture: Instagram

She has 2 million TikTok followers where she shows people the behind-the-scenes of running a bakery. Picture: Jonathan Ng / The Daily Telegraph

The article — Maehashi’s first interview since the allegations — included Granger’s Portuguese tarts recipe from his 2006 cookbook Every Day, alongside the Portuguese tarts recipe in Bake with Brooki.

Maehashi claimed the wording for the method is nearly identical to the text used in the original.

“I was so shocked when I saw it. Bill is an icon of the Australian food scene. When I became aware of it, I knew that including it in my statement would make it stronger but I left it out at the request of Bill’s family,” Maehashi told Good Food.

Granger died in December 2023 and Good Food reported that his widow Natalie Elliott declined to comment, but Murdoch Books publishing director Jane Morrow said they were aware of the allegations and were “currently reviewing the concerns raised”.

news.com.au has contacted Murdoch Books for comment. Bellamy’s lawyer said she had nothing to add to an earlier statement that said: “I do not copy other people’s recipes”.

Bill Granger’s Portuguese tarts recipe from his 2006 cookbook, Every Day.

Bellamy’s Portuguese tarts recipe in her 2024 cookbook, Bake with Brooki.

‘Please stop’: Nagi Maehashi addresses backlash

Maehashi told social media trolls to stop personal attacks towards Bellamy in an Instagram video on Thursday night.

“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 said.

“I know that this is just a very, very small percentage of people online and I know the majority of people are good, fun, normal people. You know, share your opinions, have heated debates, support Brooki, support me, disagree with both of us, think we’re pathetic, whatever you want. But just keep it respectful. No trolling, no hateful comments. 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 have made against Penguin, a corporate, allegations made by my company. So we’ve got to be respectful about this.”

Maehashi told Good Food she was also being trolled by people trying to find examples of plagiarism on her own website.

“I am not a martyr. I am not pretending I am pure, but this is of a magnitude that I felt I had to speak up,” she was quoted to say.

Bellamy had shared a statement with news.com.au on Wednesday night, saying the backlash she had faced since the accusations first emerged had been “deeply distressing” both for her and her family.

“The past 24 hours have been extremely overwhelming,” said the star in a statement, saying that she has faced “attacks” on social media as a result. “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.”

Bellamy went on to insist that she has never copied another baker’s recipe, and instead has only ever “drawn inspiration” for her own creations.

“I do not copy other people’s recipes. 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.”

She continued: “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 claims in a statement sent by their lawyers to Maehashi’s lawyer, which read: “Our client respectfully rejects your clients’ allegations and confirms that the recipes in the BWB Book were written by Brooke Bellamy.”

Nagi Maehashi said she had been worrying about making her allegations public for months. Picture: Supplied

It was revealed on Thursday that Bellamy had been dropped from working as ambassador for the Academy for Enterprising Girls, an Australian Government-funded entrepreneurship program to help young women aged between 10 and 18 learn new skills.

“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 said in a statement.

“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.”

news.com.au contacted Bellamy for comment about the decision.

An Instagram post by Nagi Maehashi accusing Brooke Bellamy of copying her caramel slice recipe.

Nagi Maehashi’s copycat allegations

Maehashi accused Bellamy of plagiarising her caramel slice and baklava recipes from her site RecipeTin Eats.

Additionally, she claimed that other authors had their recipes copied by Bellamy. Bellamy vigorously denied these claims as well.

“I’m no stranger to seeing my recipes copied online,” Maehashi wrote in a post on Instagram and on her website. “But seeing what I believe to be my recipes and my words printed in a multimillion-dollar book launched with a huge publicity campaign from one of Australia’s biggest publishers was shocking.”

“There are also recipes from other authors, including from a very well known, beloved cookbook author where the similarities are so extensive, dismissing it as coincidence would be absurd (in my opinion),” Maehashi wrote in her post addressed to Bellamy and her publisher Penguin Books.

“Out of respect for and at the request of authors, I cannot share further details.”

Later on, McKenney, who blogs under @sallysbakeblog and boasts 1 million followers on Instagram, claimed that her vanilla cake recipe was used by Bellamy.

News.com.au reached out to Maehashi for further comment on the allegations. We also reached out to McKenney, who politely declined to comment.

In a statement posted on her Instagram Story on Thursday, Maehashi claimed she went “back and forth with Penguin/Brooki” for “almost 6 months” before going public with the allegations this week.

She also denied her goal was for compensation.

“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,” the statement said.

Originally published as Third cookbook author named in Brooke Bellamy, Nagi Maehashi recipe dispute