Nagi Maehashi beats baking rival Brooke Bellamy at Melbourne Book Awards

Brooke Bellamy and Nagi Maehashi were both up for the same prestigious award on Wednesday evening.

Nagi Maehashi and baker and influencer Brooke Bellamy went head to head at the Book Industry Awards in Melbourne on Wednesday evening when their cookbooks - Tonight and Bake with Brooki respectively - were both short-listed for the same award.

RecipeTin Eats founder Maehashi ended up walking away with the prize, winning the category of Illustrated Book of the Year. She also won the same category two yeaars ago with her last book Dinner.

Speaking before the awards were annouced, Maehashi said she was, “so excited, very nervous, but also so happy to be here in amongst all of this incredible talent.”

It appears Bellamy, who was also nominated for the Marketing and Publicity Campaign of the Year award, did not attend.

Maehashi and Bellamy have recently been at the centre of a highly-publicised feud after Maehashi accused Bellamy of plagiarising two recipes in her best-selling book, Bake with Brooki.

Popular chef Nagi Maehashi made copying allegations against Brooki's Bakehouse founder Brooke Bellamy.

The pair could be set for a public showdown for the first time since the claims were made public. Supplied

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A famed US baker, Sally McKenney, then claimed that a cake recipe from a book she had published in 2019 was also used in Bellamy’s 2024 cookbook, which has racked up an estimated $4.6 million in sales.

Bellamy denies ever copying another baker’s recipe and said the backlash she has faced since the accusations first emerged has been “deeply distressing”.

It’s been a difficult few weeks for Bellamy, who was also recently dropped from working as an ambassador for the Academy for Enterprising Girls, a federally 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.”

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.

Bellamy hasn't made a public appearance since her rival made the claims on social media. Picture: Jonathan Ng

“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.”

Bellamy then shared a statement with news.com.au, saying the backlash she has faced since the accusations first emerged have 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.”

Originally published as Nagi Maehashi beats baking rival Brooke Bellamy at Melbourne Book Awards