Brooki the baker’s lavish lifestyle amid recipe plagiarism scandal – and how she used to get to paid to travel the world and married into the Bellamys Organic family

Aussie baking queen Brooke Bellamy has a glamorous background that includes 10 years of jet-setting as a travel blogger and having married into the family behind Bellamy’s baby food.

Before she published her debut cook book, Bake with Brooki, and became locked in a war of words with fellow star baker Nagi Maehashi over plagiarism claims, Ms Bellamy ran a blog under the name World of Wanderlust. 

The work involved years of solo trips and stays at luxurious resorts around the globe.  

It was in 2016 that the 33-year-old returned home to Tasmania and started successful cafe Charlie’s Dessert House, which is now owned and operated by her parents.

In 2021 Ms Bellamy moved to Brisbane with her then-boyfriend, landscape architect Justice Bellamy, and launched the bakery Brooki Bakehouse. The pair honeymooned at a private game reserve in South Africa earlier this year.

Mr Bellamy grew up on the family farm where infant formula company Bellamy’s Organic was founded by his parents, David Bellamy and Dooley Crighton-Bellamy, before it was acquired by a Chinese dairy giant for $1.5billion. 

In Brisbane, Mr Bellamy has been acting as a co-director of Brooki Bakehouse with his wife. The business has garnered a massive social media following off the back of TikTok videos of Ms Bellamy at work in the shop. 

But it’s the cook book Ms Bellamy published with Penguin last year that her rival has taken issue with. 

Brooke Bellamy (pictured) has become locked in a war of words with fellow star baker Nagi Maehashi

Before she published her debut cook book, Ms Bellamy ran a blog under the name World of Wanderlust

Ms Bellamy’s work as a travel influencer involved years of solo trips and stays at luxurious resorts

Ms Maehashi’s rise in the food blogging space has been just as meteoric – if not more so. Both chefs are savvy businesswomen with massive followings on social media. 

The 47-year-old’s newfound cooking celebrity has afforded her a luxury lifestyle that includes a $7million Victorian manor in Hunters Hill, northwest Sydney. 

She is a former financier at Brookfield Multiplex and PwC who pivoted to food blogging in 2014. 

Ms Maehashi’s cook books with Pan Macmillan Australia have sold hundreds of thousands of copies, won industry awards and smashed nonfiction sales records. 

Her wildly popular website RecipeTin Eats, and a Sydney food bank feeding the city’s vulnerable, have only raised her profile further. 

Ms Maehashi, who will famously cook dozens of iterations of a treat before putting a recipe online, claims the recipes for Caramel Slice and Baklava in Ms Bellamy’s cook book are nearly identical to the ones she has posted on RecipeTin Eats.

Daily Mail Australia does not suggest that Ms Maehashi’s claims are true.  

‘To me, the similarities are so specific and detailed that calling these a coincidence feels disingenuous,’ she wrote on social media on Tuesday. 

Nagi Maehashi (pictured) is a former financier at Brookfield Multiplex and PwC who pivoted to food blogging in 2014

Ms Maehashi’s cooking celebrity has afforded her a luxury lifestyle that includes a $7million Victorian manor (pictured)

‘There are also recipes from other authors, including from a very well known, beloved cookbook author where the similarities are so extensive, dismissing it as coincidence would be absurd (in my opinion).

‘I’m speaking up because staying silent protects this kind if behaviour.’

Ms Bellamy denied the claims, saying on Instagram: ‘I did not plagiarise any recipes in my book which consists of 100 recipes I have created over many years.’

She said she had been making and selling her caramel slice since 2016, whereas RecipeTin Eats published its recipe for the slice in 2020.

Ms Bellamy added she had ‘immediately offered to remove both recipes from future reprints to prevent further aggravation’. 

‘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.’

Ms Maehashi explained that out of respect for the other authors, she has chosen not to name them or share further details of the allegedly plagiarised recipes.

But a second baker did come forward to echo Ms Maehashi’s plagiarism claims just hours after she posted her statement.

US-based baker Sally McKenney claimed on Instagram that Ms Bellamy had also copied her Vanilla Cake recipe

Ms Maehashi will famously bake dozens of iterations of a treat before putting a recipe online

Ms Maehashi claims the recipes for Caramel Slice and Baklava in Ms Bellamy’s cook book are nearly identical to her own

US-based baker Sally McKenney claimed on Instagram that Ms Bellamy had also copied her Vanilla Cake recipe. Ms Maehashi had reached out to her to let her know. 

‘Original recipe creators who put in the work to develop and test recipes deserve credit – especially in a best-selling cookbook,’ Ms McKenney said. 

Penguin has also denied the allegations, saying via their lawyers ‘Our client respectfully rejects your client’s allegations and confirms that the recipes in [Bake with Brooki] were written by Brooke Bellamy’, according to Ms Maehashi. 

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Ms Maehashi, Ms Bellamy and Penguin for comment.  

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