Allegations of plagiarism – updated

April 29, 2025 by
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Today the creator of the popular blog RecipeTin Eats and cookbook author Nagi Maehashi, shared allegations of plagiarism against Brooke Bellamy, author of Bake with Brooki. You can read her post here where Nagi shares two examples of her recipes she believes to be copied – collage below shows the Caramel slice comparison. Nagi also claimed that a recent reprint of the book contained a different recipe for the Caramel slice.

Bellamy responded to these allegations today after shutting down her Instagram comments and making her personal Instagram private – it seems it was not private previously as she has nearly 41K followers there.

“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 statement began.

“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 final slide, Brooke states she offered to remove both recipes from future reprints, which she says “was communicated to Nagi swiftly”. She also expressed “great respect” for the RecipeTin Eats blogger.

We are not aware of any other authors coming forward at this time with similar claims. Unless Bellamy can prove creation of the exact recipes in 2016, how would one verify who created it first? And perhaps that is something for the legal folks to discern.

As we read these posts this morning. we recalled the 2021 allegations made by Sharon Wee, author of Growing Up in a Nonya Kitchen: Singapore Recipes from My Mother against Elizabeth Haigh’s Makan: Recipes from the Heart of Singapore which ended with the publisher of Makan pulling the book.

We will keep you posted as more information unfolds regarding this issue.

Sally McKenney of Sally’s Baking Addiction has joined the allegations with this post to Nagi’s Instagram:

Category: Food Biz People

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9 Comments

  • SheilaS  on  April 29, 2025

    Wow! It seems like this could have been so easily resolved with wins all around by removing the recipes or providing a credit/acknowledgement. Kudos to Nagi for standing up for her content.

  • racheljmorgan  on  April 29, 2025

    I find these disputes somewhat silly as baked good recipes are rarely created out of thin air. I recently figured out a “secret family recipe” for pumpkin cheesecake pie was something published verbatim by Philadelphia in the 1970s. This could easily happen to 2 people, and frankly I’ve seen matched home recipes in real life for basic dishes. People just laughed it off, but the factor was no money/reputation involved!

  • dbuhler  on  April 29, 2025

    According to Nagi’s post, a recent edition of Brooke’s book has an amended caramel slice recipe. You would think that if the first recipe published was in fact the way she has been making it since 2016, as she claims, she would have fought harder to keep the recipe. Nagi also states that other recipes by other writers have been identified, but not shared publicly. It will be interesting to see if anyone else comes forth with similar allegations. I agree with the previous comments… rarely are baked recipes created from scratch, however, it would have been best if an acknowledgement was published to show inspiration for the recipe.

  • demomcook  on  April 29, 2025

    I can’t speak to other recipes, but the caramel slice has been around for decades, and it really wasn’t created by either of them.

  • demomcook  on  April 29, 2025

    PS – Millionaire’s Shortbread was the name for these.

  • debkellie  on  April 29, 2025

    The concept of a recipe cannot be copyrighted under intellectual property law here in Oz, but the specific quantity of the ingredients and the method by which they are combined can be safeguarded as intellectual property… how many varied recipes are there for many dishes.. all slightly nuanced in quantities and or methods… seems like a really useless waste of resources to (a) allege plagiarism and the (b) respond with lawyers which is what Penguin did!

  • Foodycat  on  April 30, 2025

    The big problem with Elizabeth Haigh’s plaigarism is she took the stories in the headnotes as well as specific wording. If it’s just a list of ingredients and a fairly universal method, it’s incredibly difficult to prove. Republishing with a *different* recipe feels like an admission of guilt though.

  • dmco6863  on  May 2, 2025

    From what I’ve read there were two of Nagi’s recipes and other’s as well. A bit more than just a coincidence it would seem.

  • TBipp  on  May 3, 2025

    What I appreciate about Jennifer Segal, “Once Upon a Chef” blogger is that her online recipes and cookbooks always give credit to whomever provided the idea/recipe for a dish. She is very forthright and upfront on giving credit.

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