Jamie Oliver has pumped £2.5m of royalties from his new book Cook with Jamie into the celebrity chef's charity chain of restaurants, Fifteen. He and his wife Jools also took more than a 50 per cent pay cut last year.

The couple paid themselves a dividend of £900,000, compared to £2m the previous year, according to accounts to be filed this week at Companies House.

Pre-tax profits for Oliver's two main companies, Sweet As Candy and Sweet As Candy Holdings, fell from £7.5m in 2005 to £5.7m last year. This is mainly because all the royalties the best-selling book earned last year were donated to Fifteen, which trains disadvantaged chefs. Cook with Jamie, which features over 175 recipes aimed at teaching culinary basics, was published in October 2006.

The profits also include income from his estimated £1m-a-year contract as the public face of Sainsbury's and royalties from earlier books like The Naked Chef.