A celebrity bakery owner accused of recipe plagiarism has doubled down on her innocence, insisting she did “not copy other people’s recipes”.
Brooke Bellamy has been called out for allegedly stealing recipes for use in her bestselling cookbook Bake With Brooki.
The allegations were levelled against her by RecipeTin Eats’ Nagi Maehashi and Sally McKenney, author and blogger behind Sally’s Baking Addiction.
The recipes in contention include caramel slice and baklava recipes by Ms Maehashi, and Ms McKenney’s Best Vanilla Cake recipe.
Ms Bellamy, who owns the popular Brooki Bakehouse in Brisbane, has staunchly denied the accusations.
She described the allegations as “deeply distressing” for her colleagues and family.
“The past 24 hours have been extremely overwhelming. I have had media outside my home and business, and have been attacked online,” she says.
Ms Bellamy maintains she did not copy any 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 says.
Recipe plagiarism can be murky territory in the culinary world, prominent cook and author Melanie Persson told AAP.
The author of The Very Hungry Coeliac and Gluten-Free Feasts cookbooks did not address the specific allegations against Ms Bellamy but said plagiarism could feel “gut-wrenching”.
As someone who develops recipes specifically for the gluten-free community, Ms Persson has come across dishes that bear “uncanny resemblances” to her own original creations.
“It is usually pretty identifiable,” she said.
“Creating recipes for social media or for cookbooks can feel quite thankless. If someone rips that off without crediting you, it can really suck.”
Isabella Alexander, a law professor at University of Technology Sydney, said while you can copyright a recipe, you can’t copyright the idea or the food item itself, such as a caramel slice.
The legal issues arise when someone directly copies the method and presentation of the recipe.
While copyright occurs often, it can become a contentious issue when money is involved.
“When another publisher or another recipe author copies those recipes and starts making money from them, that tends to be when people try and stop that from happening,” Professor Alexander told AAP.
“It affects the market for the recipes and the profits that the recipe owner can get from the work that they’ve put into developing and selling those recipes.”
Lines continued to form outside Ms Bellamy’s bakery on Wednesday.
Ms Bellamy quickly became a global sensation after sharing “day in the life” videos on TikTok, which receive millions of views each day.
She is best known for her cookies and has opened pop-up stores in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Bake With Brooki is a bestselling cookbook published by Penguin in October 2024 that retails for $49.99.
Both Penguin and Ms Bellamy deny the allegations.
The Brisbane baker said she had offered to remove both the recipes referred to by Ms Maehashi from future reprints “to prevent further aggravation”.
In Ms Maehashi’s Instagram post on Tuesday, she accused Ms Bellamy of “profiting” from the alleged plagiarised recipes.
She claims she first raised concerns with Penguin in December.
“I put a huge amount of effort into my recipes. And I share them on my website for anyone to use for free,” she said.
“To see them plagiarised (in my view) and used in a book for profit, without credit, doesn’t just feel unfair. It feels like a blatant exploitation of my work.”
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