Recipe Controversy Unfolds as Influencer Brooke Bellamy Faces Plagiarism Allegations

Nagi Maehashi and Sally McKenney allege that TikTok influencer Brooke Bellamy has copied their recipes, leading to accusations of plagiarism and legal contention. While Bellamy insists her work is original, questions around intellectual property rights in the food industry are being reignited.

In a brewing controversy within Australia’s culinary scene, two cookbook authors, Nagi Maehashi and Sally McKenney, have leveled serious accusations against TikTok influencer and baker Brooke Bellamy, claiming she has copied their recipes in her best-selling cookbook, "Bake with Brooki."

Maehashi, who runs the highly successful food website RecipeTin Eats, asserts that Bellamy's cookbook contains "word-for-word similarities" to her own creations. Maehashi noted that a reader had pointed out striking parallels between her caramel slice recipe and Bellamy’s, leading her to perform a side-by-side comparison that revealed additional similarities to her baklava recipe as well.

In response, Bellamy, who operates Brooki Bakehouse in Queensland and has garnered a substantial following of two million TikTok fans, has rebutted these claims, defending the originality of her work and stating that the recipes in question are products of her years of development. She argued that one of the disputed recipes was actually conceived prior to Maehashi’s own publication.

Shortly after Maehashi’s allegations surfaced, McKenney, an American author behind Sally's Baking Addiction, also chimed in with her own accusations, asserting that her vanilla cake recipe had been appropriated by Bellamy. McKenney took to Instagram, emphasizing that original recipe creators deserve proper acknowledgment, particularly in a commercial context.

Maehashi has taken legal steps by engaging her own counsel and contacting both Bellamy and her publisher, Penguin Random House Australia. She expressed feelings of exploitation and injustice, stating that it was disheartening to see her work used for profit without credit.

Despite the mounting allegations, both Penguin and Bellamy have denied any wrongdoing. Penguin's response affirmed that all recipes in Bellamy's book were originally authored by her. Nonetheless, in an attempt to simmer the situation, Bellamy offered to remove the contentious recipes from future editions, a gesture she claimed was communicated promptly to Maehashi.

While both women’s cookbooks are currently in the running for the Australian Book Industry Awards, this dispute brings to light deeper issues of originality and intellectual property in the highly competitive food publishing sector—an area where inspiration often blurs the lines between homage and infringement.