One of Australia’s most popular cookbook authors has accused another Australian author of “profiting from plagiarised recipes”.
In a post to her website RecipeTin Eats, author Nagi Maehashi alleged Brooke Bellamy’s latest book includes several stolen recipes.
Maehashi alleged two of these recipes were directly taken from RecipeTin Eats.
Bellamy has denied the allegations.
The bloggers
Nagi Maehashi is a Sydney-based recipe developer, who runs the cooking website RecipeTin Eats.
She is the author of two cookbooks and runs the not-for-profit food bank RecipeTin Meals.
Brooke Bellamy is a social media cooking influencer who runs a franchise of bakeries in Queensland called Brooki Bakehouse.
In October 2024, she published a book called ‘Bake with Brooki’ with Penguin Random House.
Stolen recipes
Maehashi said in November 2024, a reader pointed out “remarkable similarities” between a recipe for caramel slice on her site and a recipe in Bellamy’s cookbook.
She described the recipe as “special” because its caramel layer is made using brown sugar, rather than golden syrup.
While Maehashi acknowledged that “there are only so many ways some recipes can be made,” she described the similarities as “far too strong to be a coincidence.”
Maehashi also claimed a recipe for baklava published on her site in 2018 was plagiarised for Bellamy’s book.
While the original post had initially been sourced from and credited to another cooking website, Maehashi said it was fully rewritten and updated after “extensive testing.”
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In a side-by-side comparison of her version and Bellamy’s, she said the “similarities speak for themselves.”
In her blog post, Maehashi called the alleged plagiarism “exploitation”, and found it “ethically indefensible” because her site funds her food bank.
Legal battle
In December 2024, Maehashi raised her concerns in letters to both the book’s publisher and Bellamy. She claimed her two letters to Bellamy were ignored.
In a months-long exchange with Penguin’s lawyers, she requested that either the book be pulled from shelves, that she be credited for the recipes she alleges were plagiarised, or that they be removed entirely from future reprints.
Maehashi also asked for a “substantial donation to a charity in lieu of financial compensation.”
Bellamy
In a statement posted to social media, Bellamy rejected allegations that any of the 100 recipes in her cookbook were plagiarised.
She said each recipe was “created over many years,” including the caramel slice, which she claimed she had been making and selling long before it appeared on Maehashi’s website in 2020.
Bellamy also disputed claims that she ignored Maehashi’s letters, saying she “immediately offered to remove” the recipes in question “from future reprints”.
Legality
According to the Australian Copyright Council (ACC), a recipe can only be protected under copyright law if:
It is an “original” work that results from the creator’s own “skill or labour”.
The recipe is documented, whether in written, video or audio form.
However, copyright protection does not cover ideas, lists of ingredients or quantities, or common techniques.
In Australia, a copyrighted recipe is protected for 70 years after the author’s death.
