Last year, a feud between two famous Australian foodies erupted and if you were online at the time, it would have been hard to miss.
Nagi Maehashi (aka RecipeTin Eats) — the recipe queen with millions of fans who love her for her simple, delicious meals — made allegations of plagiarism against Brooke Bellamy, or Brooki Bakehouse as you probably know her — the Brisbane-based baker behind the delectable Brooki chunky cookies and those viral behind-the-scenes bakery vlogs that took over our feeds last year.
Brooke has her own three million followers across Instagram and TikTok, and released a cookbook in 2024 titled Bake With Brooki. It promised "iconic recipes from the internet's favourite bakery — Brooki Bakehouse".
On April 29, 2025, Nagi posted on her website and social media pages, alleging that Brooke plagiarised some of her recipes. And not just hers — she claimed Brooke took from other authors, too.
The recipes specifically called out were for her Caramel Slice and Baklava, which Nagi alleged matched ones on her website.
What followed was an internet storm of patchelagiarism claims, online trolling and back and forth statements from the two women at the centre. The criticism towards Brooke became particularly nasty, even prompting Nagi to come out and urge viewers to "please stop the trolling".
Now, almost a year on, the noise has settled and Brooke has spoken out on the situation, sharing her side of what unfolded.
Appearing on a recent episode of The Balance Theory podcast, Brooke said she learned to accept that she couldn't control how others viewed her.
"I've come to peace with the terms that on the internet everyone can say whatever they want about you but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's true," she said.
"And I think it's hard because, as a human being, your integrity is everything that you have so when someone questions that and when it gets into the comments section and people get quite nasty, you can really take it on board.
Brooke said she tried to remind herself that she was the "sum of [her] actions, not [her] words" and made a deliberate choice "not to react and not to add to this narrative of 'she said, she said' and pitting two women against each other".
Here's a full timeline of everything that's happened since Nagi first posted her allegations.
March 9, 2026: Brooke opens up about the controversy almost a year later.
Speaking to Erika De Pellegrin on The Balance Theory podcast, Brooke shared that she made a deliberate choice to stay away from the online "noise" when the controversy erupted.
Brooke noted that the "only thing to gain" from entering the narrative is "protecting your own ego".
"I'm always trying to be the bigger person and not dive into the comment section so I think you just have to … live and breathe you who say you are in those moments," she said.
"You can show people who you are. I often find as well that people have already decided, so what are you adding to other than noise?"
Brooke said she chose to keep showing up for her Brooki community, who supported her "because they want to be there".
"Those are the people that I'm speaking to, so if you don't have something nice to say, in my opinion, don't say it," she said.
"I always say there are three truths," Brooke added. "Their truth, my truth and the truth lies somewhere in the middle because we each have our own perceptions in life.
"So I think it's just a bigger lesson for me in that you can not please everyone. As you go through building a business and building in public, people will always have something to say."
As for how she processed it all, Brooke noted that she found it best to deal with it all in private.
"As a female founder, something I've found helpful is responding, maybe it's typing out your response or speaking in the mirror what your response would be, and then just not posting it because you know your truth and you know what's real and what's not," she said.
"The onus is not on you as an individual to tell the internet who you are."
May 25: Brooke returns to social media and addresses the controversy.
After weeks of silence, Brooke made her return to social media and officially addressed the plagiarism scandal on May 25.
Brooke again defended herself against accusations from prominent food writers, including Nagi, and asked to move on with her life.
"Since opening my bakery three years ago and sharing my life online, I've never had such a long break between videos, but I've also never experienced something like I have over the last few weeks," she shared on Instagram.
Brooke went on to explain that her cookbook was intended to showcase cherished recipes from various sources, including those handwritten and passed down through generations, shared by friends and family, and adapted for commercial bakery use.
"While all of these recipes are personal to me, I cannot say that I have invented the cookies, cupcakes, brownies or cakes in the recipe book," she said.
"They are all inspired from somewhere and someone before me. I never subscribe to be a part of a narrative that pits two women against each other, especially in the same industry. I think there's room for everyone, especially more women in business."
Brooke concluded that this was all she had to say about the situation and that she would like to go back to focusing on her business and her love for baking.
May 7: The cookbooks go to battle for top spot.
Awkwardly, the two chefs went head-to-head at the Australian Book Industry Awards on May 7.
Nagi and Brooke were both nominated for the Illustrated Book of the Year, which Nagi won for her cookbook, RecipeTin Eats: Tonight, marking her second consecutive win in the category.
She thanked her team for their support in an Instagram post. "This one's for you. For the whole team. I am proud to call you my publisher. Success and integrity. WE DID IT!!"
Brooke did not attend the awards night as she was reportedly overseas for a pop-up bakery event in the United Arab Emirates.
May 2: Nagi shares a surprising social media statement.
Three days after posting her allegations, Nagi once again posted on her social media, but this time with a statement none of us expected.
The recipe queen released a video on Instagram imploring people to stop making "personal attacks" against Brooke.
Her statement began with four powerful words which highlighted how she really feels about the situation.
"Please stop the trolling," Nagi urged viewers.
"Now, I know I've made serious allegations, but this does not justify the personal attacks that I've seen online against Brooke Bellamy. I do not support it, and I'm asking you to stop."
The chef clarified that she knew these trolls were a "very small percentage of people online".
"I know the majority of people are good, fun, normal people," she said.
"Share your opinions. Have heated debates. Support Brooki. Support me. Disagree with both of us. Think we're pathetic. Whatever you want. But just keep it respectful, no trolling, no hateful comments."
Nagi finished her statement by reminding viewers that this is a "business dispute" and should be treated as such.
"These are legal allegations that I have made against Penguin, a corporate, allegations made by my company," she said. "So, we've got to be respectful about this. You know, it's the RecipeTin way."
In the caption of the video, Nagi remarked how "swift and vicious" social media had been in the wake of the scandal.
"I made the statement knowing that it would come with a barrage of hate against me, and social media did not let me down," she wrote.
"But I'm asking you to stop the personal attacks against Brooke Bellamy. That's not the way to speak your mind and that's not the kind of support I want. Please keep it respectful - N x."
May 1: Another author comes forward.
A few days after the allegations broke, another author came out with a similar accusation.
Food blogger Sally McKenney (aka SallysBakeBlog) claimed her recipe, The Best Vanilla Cake I've Ever Had, from 2019, was plagiarised in the book and features on Brooke's YouTube channel.
"Original recipe creators who put in the work to develop and test recipes deserve credit — especially in a best-selling cookbook," she wrote on Instagram.
The ingredients are similar. There's a 3g difference in the amount of flour used and 1tsp of salt between the recipes. Brooke's also uses one extra egg and caster sugar instead of granulated, but the two can generally be interchanged in baking.
They both feature the wording "yes, a tablespoon!" following the vanilla extract.
April 29: Brooke speaks out.
In a statement on Instagram, Brooke swiftly shut down the allegations, saying she had been creating recipes and selling them commercially since October 2016.
"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," she wrote.
"On March 2020, Recipetin 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."
Brooke claimed she offered to remove both recipes from future reprints to avoid further conflict and that this was communicated this to Nagi.
"I have great respect for Nagi and what she has done in recent years for cooks, content creators and cookbooks in Australia — especially as a fellow female entrepreneur," she said.
"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.
"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."
On April 30, Brooke again denied copying recipes.
"The past 24 hours have been extremely overwhelming. I have had media outside my home and business, and have been attacked online," she said in a statement to media via her lawyers.
"It has been deeply distressing for my colleagues and my young family.
"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."
Listen: Who Owns The Making Of A Meal on The Quicky. Post continues below.
April 27: Nagi goes public with the allegations on social media.
Nagi claimed the saga started with a reader email in November. They noticed "remarkable similarities" between Nagi and Brooke's recipes.
"I'm no stranger to seeing my recipes being copied online," Nagi said. "But seeing what appeared to me to be one of my recipes printed in a book launched with a huge publicity campaign from one of Australia's biggest publishers was shocking — it has sold over $4.6 million worth of sales in under six months."
Nagi said she was aware recipes can resemble one another. Because let's be real here, there are only so many ways some recipes can actually be made. But her issue was with the precision and details of the similarities.
"To me, the similarities between the recipes in question are far too specific and detailed to be dismissed as coincidence," Nagi alleged. "It's a slap in the face to every author who puts in the hard work to create original content rather than cutting corners."
Nagi said it took several attempts to finesse her caramel slice — and she even remembered the exact life moment that inspired it, along with all the versions she trialled before landing on "the one."
Nagi said she contacted the publisher, Penguin Random House, who she alleged resorted to 'legal intimidation'. She claimed Penguin has denied the allegations, and she received no response from Brooke.
So... who actually owns a recipe?
Here's where it gets tricky. When it comes to copyright law, recipes are surprisingly slippery.
In Australia, the idea of a recipe — say, chocolate chip cookies made with brown butter and sea salt — isn't protected by copyright. You can't own a list of ingredients or a basic method.
What can be copyrighted is the creative expression around the recipe: things like detailed instructions written in a distinctive voice, accompanying stories, photos, or videos.
If your instructions are written with enough literary flair, they might be considered original enough to qualify.
In Australia, copyright is automatic once an original work is created — but again, it only applies to the unique way something is written, not the concept itself.
So, unless someone copies word-for-word instructions or lifts large chunks of text, it's unlikely to count as legal plagiarism.
Ethically? That's a whole other story — especially in the food blogging world, where recipe creation is often someone's livelihood.
This article was first published on April 30, 2025 and has since been updated.
Feature Image: RecipeTin Eats / Brooki Bakehouse
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Ailish Delaney
Acting Morning Editor
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