Founder of Brooki and author of Bake With Brooki, Brooke Bellamy, has officially addressed the media regarding the bombshell accusations surrounding her best-selling cookbook.
On Tuesday, the Australian cookbook world was shook to the core after Nagi Maehashi (the founder of RecipeTin Eats) accused Bellamy of copying recipes for her best-selling book Bake With Brooki.
Since then, US food author Sally McKenney has also come forward, accusing Bellamy of copying her vanilla cake recipe in both her best-selling book and YouTube channel.
The Brooki founder denied all allegations of plagiarism and expressed how the whole ordeal has been “deeply distressing” for her, her colleagues and her family. She has also urged for media to stop appearing at her address and her business, Brooki Bakehouse.
“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,” she said in a statement to PEDESTRIAN.TV, which was sent via her lawyers from Wilkinson Butler, which specialises in crisis management.
“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.
“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.”
The media statement comes hours after Bellamy addressed Maehashi’s scathing accusations on her Instagram Stories, echoing that the recipes within her book were built from the love she has for baking, from childhood to now.
“I did not plagiarise any recipes in my book, which consists of 100 recipes I have created over many years, since falling in love with baking as a child and growing up baking with my mum in our home,” the Bake With Brooki author wrote on Instagram.
“In 2016, I opened my first bakery. I have been creating my recipes and selling them commercially since October 2016 — as shown in the next slide and as was communicated at the first point of contact I received.
“On March 2020, Recipetin [sic] Eats published a recipe for caramel slice. It uses the same ingredients as my recipe, which I have been making and selling since four years prior.”
In the third and final slide of her Instagram Statement, Bellamy claimed she was in contact with Maehashi when concerns surrounding her book were first brought to her attention, adding that she offered to remove the Caramel Slice recipe from future reprints of Bake With Brooki.
“Recipe development in today’s world is enveloped in inspiration from other cooks, cookbook authors, food bloggers and content creators. This willingness to share recipes and build on what has come before is what I love so much about baking and sharing recipes — the community that surrounds it,” the TikTok baker continued.
“I stand by my love for baking, my recipes, and the joy this book has brought so many home bakers around the world to try recreating my recipes from inside their homes.”
At the time of writing, Maehashi has not responded publicly to Bellamy’s statement, but has both Penguin Random House and Brooki Bake House tagged in her bio.
The post Brooke Bellamy Responds To Media Amid Plagiarism Allegations: ‘Deeply Distressing’ appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
