If you’ve been anywhere near social media in the past week, you’ve likely heard about the ongoing drama between RecipeTin Eats founder Nagi Maehashi and influencer Brooke Bellamy, who are locked in a battle over a fan-favourite baked good: caramel slice.
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Many have been left wondering if their feud will play out in court, and if a recipe can really be plagiarised.
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Ground zero
On April 29, Nagi took to social media to accuse Brooke, better known as Brooki Bakehouse, of plagiarising her caramel slice and baklava recipes, posting side-by-side images comparing her website with Brooke’s new cookbook, Bake With Brooki.
“I have nothing to gain from speaking out, but staying silent would make me complicit. Because I’m not the only one,” she captioned the post, which has garnered over 140,000 likes. “To me, the similarities are so specific and detailed that calling these a coincidence feels disingenuous,” she wrote.
“I‘m speaking up because staying silent protects this kind of behaviour. Profiting from plagiarised recipes is unethical, even if not a copyright breach, and 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 added that she had contacted the publisher, Penguin Random House Australia, in December 2024, and was disappointed with their lack of action.
How did Brooke respond?
Brooke swiftly released a statement doubling down on her decision to publish the recipes, alleging that she had created it four years before Nagi. “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 wrote.
“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 simplydon’t work.“
“In 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,” she alleged. Brooke added that she had offered to remove the two recipes from future reprints of her book “to prevent further aggravation”, citing “great respect” for Nagi.
Lawyer Mark Metzeling spoke to Lawyers Weekly about the drama, explaining that Nagi’s claims may not hold up in court.
“A list of ingredients for a recipe can be likened to a data set in that those items can’tbe swapped/changed to produce the same good,” he said. “It’s therefore unlikely that a list of ingredients would be enforceable. Similarly, a written description of the method to make an item is likely to be considered unoriginal as it merely describes a known process.”
He added that as recipes like caramel slice and baklava are universal and have been around for decades, Nagi cannot copyright them unless they contain a unique twist that has not been done before.
Mark mentioned that if Brooke had copied Nagi’s writing style, it could be classed as copyright. “The main protection, however, is enforcing how a recipe is expressed (the combination of the writing, photos, videos etc.). If the presentation of the recipe, beyond the ingredients and baking method of common baked goods, replicates a substantial part of the original layout and presentation, then lawyers for Maehashi might have a case.”
He added that Brooke could defend Nagi’s allegations by proving that she had created the recipe from scratch. “If one person came up with the same recipe for making a dish as another person and expressed it in a very similar or identical manner, that person would not infringe any copyright if they could show that they came up with the recipe completely independently,” he said.
“If Brooki can show independent creation of her recipe, recipe development, and hasexpressed her ideas independently from Nagi, as well as show originality in the recipe, she should be able to defend Nagi’s claims.”
Nagi asked her followers to stop trolling Brooke online
Since Nagi’s bombshell post, Brooke was dropped as an ambassador for the Academy for Enterprising Girls, and has been the victim of a wave of online hate.
“I know I’ve made serious allegations…but this does not justify the personal attacks I’ve seen online against Brooke Bellamy,” Nagi said in a candid video posted to her Instagram. “I do not support it andI’m asking you to stop.”
Popular American baker Sally McKenney also came forward and alleged that her 2019 recipe, “The Best Vanilla Cake I’ve Ever Had“, was plagiarised by Brooke.
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