A biscuit that definitely wasn’t a scone.

This campaign was created in support of The Taste Master SA, using Royal Baking Powder as the hero ingredient.

The brief was simple: create one baked dish using the product.

So naturally, I decided to make something I had never made before.

An American biscuit.

For the longest time, American biscuits had always confused me slightly. Every time I saw one, my South African brain immediately thought:

That’s a scone.

But once I started looking into how they were made, I realised there was a very important difference.

American biscuits are all about those beautiful, buttery, flaky layers.

And suddenly I understood the hype.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Rather than trying to reinvent the brief, I used this campaign as an opportunity to learn a new technique.

The goal became getting as much lift and flakiness into the biscuits as possible, with Royal Baking Powder doing exactly what I needed it to do.

The finished biscuits came out golden, tall and layered, with that slightly crisp exterior giving way to a soft, buttery centre.

Simple food done properly.

And sometimes that is enough.

NOT QUITE A SCONE

What I loved most was discovering that, although biscuits and scones might look similar at first glance, they don't necessarily play the same role on the plate.

I had always associated something shaped like this with jam, cream or something sweet.

But an American biscuit can comfortably sit alongside all kinds of savoury dishes too.

That completely changed how I thought about it.

For the final shot, I kept things beautifully uncomplicated and served the biscuit warm with a generous knob of butter tucked into the centre.

As it started melting into all those flaky layers, there really wasn't much else it needed.

And yes, it was delicious.

THE TAKEAWAY

This wasn't one of my biggest campaigns, but it represents something I really enjoy about creating food content.

There is always something new to learn.

Sometimes a brief doesn't need an elaborate recipe or an unexpected flavour combination to become interesting.

Sometimes it can simply give you an excuse to try something you've been curious about, understand it properly and create something really good.

I went into this one thinking I was basically making a scone.

I came out of it understanding why Americans take their biscuits so seriously.