Cupcake recipe plagiarism accusation rocks Food Network star Anne Thornton

From Fox News:
Television dessert diva Anne Thornton lost her sweet deal with the Food Network after brass discovered some of her decadent delights were reheats from cookbooks and super chefs like Martha Stewart and the Barefoot Contessa, sources said.

Thornton -- whose show, "Dessert First," launched on the foodie channel in October 2010 -- was told the popular program would not be renewed when its second season ended.

"The network was very concerned because many of her recipes were close, with only a few minor edits, to other chefs' recipes," a source close to the production said Wednesday.

Among the sweet sensations that raised eyebrows were the frosting for Thornton's German Chocolate Cupcakes, a near replica of Martha Stewart's 2009 Coconut-Pecan Frosting recipe, give or take a handful of pecans and a dollop of butter.
For the curious, here's Anne Thornton's German chocolate cupcake recipe and here's the Martha Stewart chocolate pecan frosting recipe.

Comments

Nic said…
A great baker is not made by their recipe, but by their ability to execute it. How many times has one followed a recipe and the outcome was awful.
Unknown said…
I completely agree with Nic. Also, as someone who has grown up in a family that loves to cook, I know that every single one of "my" recipes has, at the very least, it's roots in someone else's kitchen. While I call my oatmeal chocolate chunk cookies my own, they are just a slight variation of my aunt's (I use orange zest and extract and dried cranberries instead of vanilla and raisins.) Recently I found out that my aunt got the recipe from a friend who just copied it from the back of a Quaker Oatmeal container. Does that make me a plagarist?
Since baking is a science, most cakes/cupcake recipes are inevitably going to be similar. So I guess every recipe that has ever been created has been plagiarized. ;)