Cookie queen rises: Brooke Bellamy’s triumphant return after recipe row

Baking star Brooke Bellamy reveals what helped her fight back from plagiarism accusations, and what’s next for the brand.

Brisbane baking star Brooke Bellamy has credited Queenslanders for giving her the strength to come back after devastating plagiarism accusations, with the cookie queen announcing a string of new bakery openings.

The sweets guru is set to launch two more Sunshine State Brooki Bakehouses next month – on the Gold Coast and Brisbane’s Mt Gravatt – with a third to possibly follow, before expanding to her first permanent overseas outlet by the end of the year in the United Arab Emirates.

The openings come in the wake of accusations in April by RecipeTin Eats author Nagi Maehashi that several recipes in Bellamy’s debut cookbook Bake With Brooki were plagiarised.

Bellamy vehemently denies the accusation, crediting a lifetime of baking with her mother for the origins of the recipes.

While she said the past month had been incredibly difficult, she felt she couldn’t quit the brand she built over the past three years working 15- and 16-hour days.

Brooke Bellamy at her Fortitude Valley Store. Picture: Annette Dew

“I have worked really, really hard to build this brand and I’m not going to stop doing that and I have a responsibility to the 30 team members that I employ to show up every day and keep going,” she said.

She revealed she had been overwhelmed by messages and emails of support from the public since the saga started, with lengthy queues continuing outside the Fortitude Valley bakery, which all gave her the strength to carry on.

“Everyone in Queensland, especially, and Tasmania (where I grew up) is really rallying behind me and saying, ‘We just want you to keep going’,” she said.

“That’s why I came back. That’s why I started all of this, is to inspire people to follow what they’re passionate about and do what they love and that’s what I’ve done since day one.”

The new Queensland stores will open at Pacific Fair shopping centre in Broadbeach and at Westfield Garden City in Brisbane’s Upper Mt Gravatt in June, with a UAE store to follow by the end of the year after three hugely successful pop-up locations in the Middle East.

“We do have our eyes on another region as well, which is a little bit further afield, but we definitely want to take Brooki as big as we can because from day one we’ve had a global audience since becoming big on TikTok and Instagram,” she said.

Bellamy said she was moving “onwards, upwards and forwards” and couldn’t wait to see what the future would bring.

Originally published as Cookie queen rises: Brooke Bellamy’s triumphant return after recipe row