Saturday I bought a ton of strawberries at Westmoreland Berry Farm at the Arlington Farmer's Market at $15 for 3 quarts. We're coming to the end of strawberry season now (in fact, this was the last week that Westmoreland Berry Farm will have strawberries, but other vendors will still have them) and the fruit are developing that characteristic sweetness that brings back fond memories of making strawberry shortcake with my mom after a day of picking our own strawberries. One of these weekends, I need to get out to pick my own.

The first thing I did was look up my moms old recipe. There was something off about the strawberry sauce. Looking at the recipe, I thought it had too much sugar. "Aren't the strawberries are sweet enough on their own?" I thought to myself, "Seriously, she used to put in half a cup of sugar per pint of strawberries?!" I reduced the sugar to 4 tablespoons. While comparing my mom's recipe with some recipes on Epicurious, I also got the idea to add some Gran Marnier to the strawberries, because what good is dessert without some alcoholic aperitif mixed in it?

Only make enough biscuits for what you plan to eat that day or maybe the next morning because the biscuits will get dry quickly and are best when they're warm and fresh. Put the remaining dough in the fridge or the freezer until you plan to bake the rest of the dough.

Strawberry Shortcake

Biscuits
(8 servings I make extra so we have enough for the next night)
3 cups unbleached white flour
3 tablespoons of sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon find ground lemon or orange rind
3/4 to 1 cup of cold unsalted butter
1 cup of buttermilk (or 1 cup whole milk and 1 Tbsp vinegar)

Strawberries
(4 servings)
1 pint of strawberries, stems removed and sliced to desired thickness
4 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
pinch of salt
splash of Gran Marnier

Whipping Cream
1/4 cup whipping cream per serving
1/4 to 1/2 tsp vanilla extract per serving

Instructions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

To make strawberries, mix all ingredients in a bowl and stir well. Don't mash up the strawberries as the sugar and salt will draw out the juices fairly well on its own. Let sit for as long as you want but for at least 30 minutes. 

To make the biscuits, mix dry ingredients in a large bowl with a wisk or fork. Mix in lemon or orange rind and butter with hands. DO NOT MIX IN ELECTRIC APPLIANCE. THIS WILL RESULT IN DENSE BISCUITS.  And, don't blend with hands too much because you want some clumps of butter in the dough. Add milk to bowl and continue mixing with wet hands. When done, dough should resemble a fluffy, drier, slightly crumbly version of pizza dough. If you have to, take dough out of bowl and kneed it a little until it stays together. If you let it stay too crumbly, it wont form into balls to bake.

Using a 1/4 cup measuring spoon, form the dough into domes and place a couple inches apart on a baking sheet topped with parchment paper. Bake  for 12 minutes or until golden brown on top. Remove from oven and place on a cooling rack.

For whipping cream (do I seriously need to tell you how to make whipping cream?), put cream and vanilla extract in bowl and using an electric blender (or whisk for those of you trying to develop your arm muscles), mix until cream forms desired thickness. Add a few tablespoons of confectioners sugar if you like.

Place biscuit in the bottom of a serving bowl. Top with a good amount of strawberries and the juices with them. Top with a dollop of whipping cream and some fresh mint if you have it.
(Excuse the awful picture above. I took it with my camera phone at my friends place when we made this.)