Penguin Group Australia will have to fork out £12,000 to fix the terrible typo, which it blamed on a poor spellcheck correction that was not picked up by the proofreader.

However, the publishing giant has ruled out recalling books already in the shops because that would be ext­remely hard, said Bob Sessions, head of publishing.

The mistake was in a Pasta Bible recipe for spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto, which was supposed to call for black pepper.

But Mr Sessions refused to ack­nowledge the silly mistake could anger some people.

Were mortified this has become an issue of any kind and why anyone would be offended, we dont know,' he told an Australian newspaper.

Weve said to bookstores that if anyone is small-minded enough to complain about this silly mistake, we will happily replace [the book].