Strawberry Shortcake

One night after a spring training baseball game we walked across the street to Cheesecake Factory and shared a wonderful strawberry shortcake.  It was one of the better shortcakes I've had and found what is supposed to be the recipe.  It makes a lot of shortcakes and ingredients are measured in weight.  I have at times scaled down the recipe to yield about six shortcakes.  The dough was little runnier than when I make the whole recipe but instead of rolling the dough I dropped it for free form shortcakes.  It tasted the same and was actually a few steps easier.  I like to use a good vanilla gelato instead of whipped cream.  Try a little squeeze of lime on the strawberries--it brings out the flavor.  Or add a little minced mint to the berries.

Strawberry Shortcake
Ingredients:
For the strawberries:
2 pints strawberries, cored and sliced
4 Tbs sugar or to taste

For the shortcake biscuits
all purpose flour
buttermilk
heavy cream
salt
butter (I use half butter and margarine--I'm not a big fan of butter)
sugar
baking powder

For the Whipped Cream
powdered sugar
heavy cream
vanilla extract

Vanilla gelato or ice cream

Directions:
1.  Wash and drain the strawberries.  Remove the stems and slice.
2.  Put berries in a bowl and add the sugar.  Mix gently.  Chill for about 2 hours.
3.  Mix flour, sugar, salt and baking soda in a mixing bowl.  Cut in the butter until the ingredients are crumbly.
4.  Add butter milk and cream and gently mix 20-30 seconds.
5.  Drop dough into 6 rounds.  Bake at 375 for about 15 minutes.  Let cool.
6.  Split biscuits in half.  Place a scoop of ice cream on the bottom.  Spoon strawberries over the ice cream.  Place biscuit top.  Put some whip cream on top if desired.