Brooke Bellamy, the Brisbane-based influencer baker behind Brooki Bakehouse, has been dropped from an ambassador role amid allegations of plagiarism from cookbook author Nagi Maehashi, the creator of RecipeTin Eats, which are denied by Bellamy.
The ambassador role was for the Academy for Enterprising Girls, a federally funded program designed to help girls develop entrepreneurial skills through workshops and online classes.
The ABC reported today that Bellamy’s ambassadorship for The Academy for Enterprising Girls was a “small value one” worth less than $10,000, with only half paid so far.
In a statement, the academy said, “While we make no legal assessment on the allegations aired in the media, we have informed Ms Bellamy that we will not move forward with the engagement at this time.” The promotional role had not yet started.
The controversy began on Tuesday when Maehashi publicly accused Bellamy of copying two of her recipes for caramel slice and baklava in Bellamy’s cookbook, Bake with Brooki. Maehashi described the similarities as “a slap in the face to every author who puts in the hard work to create original content”, according to posts on her Instagram and website. Bellamy has denied the claims, stating that she has been making and selling her caramel slice since 2016, four years before Maehashi published a similar recipe in 2020.
Bellamy responded to the allegations in a statement sent to PEDESTRIAN.TV via her lawyers at Wilkinson Butler, saying, “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 added, “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.”
Bellamy also described the situation as “deeply distressing” for her, her colleagues, and her family, and asked for privacy.
“The past 24 hours have been extremely overwhelming. 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.”
On Instagram, Bellamy reiterated that her book contains 100 recipes she created over many years, and that she has been selling her caramel slice commercially since 2016. She also claimed she offered to remove the caramel slice recipe from future reprints of her book after Maehashi raised concerns.
Maehashi, for her part, said she did not make the allegations “lightly” and had nothing to gain from speaking up except doing what she felt was right. “I have nothing to gain out of speaking up except that I believe it’s the right thing to do,” she wrote on Instagram on Thursday.
Maehashi also claimed that she published her recipe for caramel slice on her blog in 2016, which contradicts Bellamy’s claims that she only published it in 2020.
Adding to the drama, US food author Sally McKenney also accused Bellamy of copying her vanilla cake recipe, which Bellamy has denied.
Both Bellamy’s and Maehashi’s cookbooks are currently shortlisted for the Australian Book Industry Awards. Penguin Random House, the publisher of Bake with Brooki, has denied the plagiarism allegations and maintains that the recipes were written by Bellamy.
As the situation continues to unfold, it’s definitely got people talking about where the line is between being inspired by someone else’s recipe and actually copying it — can you really call a recipe your own, or is everything just a remix these days?
Lead image: Academy for Enterprising Girls / Instagram
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