Strawberry Shortcake with Buttermilk Biscuits

 This week has been a busy one with me not feeling so good Sunday, getting blood work done Tuesday, my dad's yearly testing on Tuesday, and I have a dentist app. Thursday.

• Also last Friday, I ended up dying my hair all dark, dark brown which took 2 years for me to convince my mom to let me do it by slowly dying more and more of my hair. A few people even thought I was a natural brunette. 
• Saturday I got my cartilage pierced for the 4th time (the first 3 closed), but this was the first time I got it done professionally.
• Tuesday after coming back from the doctors I got my nose pierced! When it heals, I am going to have this ring.
• We found a little snake in the chicken coop who had eaten Red's egg, but he got away before we could grab him. We found him and released it out into the field, hoping he won't return.

  We got a big box of strawberries from the co-op so I decided to make strawberry shortcakes, but with homemade buttermilk biscuits and whipped cream. You could use the store bought cakes that have the indention to fill with fruit and whip cream, but making it yourself tastes a lot better and it isn't as hard or time consuming as some may think.

  You could even skip making the biscuits & just make a dessert out of the strawberries and whipped cream.

Strawberry Shortcake with Buttermilk Biscuits

Biscuit recipe adapted from: Love & Olive Oil

serves: 8

Biscuits:
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour, plus more for the cutting board.
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
3 tbsp sugar
6 tbsp (3/4 stick) cold butter, cut into small pieces.
3/4 cup buttermilk
melted butter, to brush on tops

Whipped Cream -based off this recipe
1 cup heavy cream, cold
2 tbsp powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract or 1/2 vanilla bean

Berries:

4 cups strawberries, cleaned, hulled, and cut

1/3 cup sugar


To make biscuits 

Preheat the oven to 400 F. In a large bowl, combine the flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder. Cut the butter into the flour with a fork or your fingertips. The pieces should be the size of small peas. Add the buttermilk to the flour, and stir with a fork until the mixture just comes together.
Lightly knead the dough a few times in the bowl, turn it out onto a lightly floured board, and roll out about 3/4 inch thick. Cut six 2 1/2" circles out of the dough. Reroll the scraps, you should be able to get 2 or 3 more biscuits out of it. Don't over mix the dough though, our you won't get a flaky, tender biscuit.
Place the biscuits on a baking sheet lined with parchment, and brush the tops with the melted butter. Bake for about 17 minutes or until lightly golden.

Whipped Cream

Using a kitchen Aid or a hand held mixer, whip the cream and slowly add in the sugar and vanilla extract or bean until it forms soft to medium peaks. 

Berries

In a large bowl, combine the strawberries with the sugar and stir gently to combine. Cover and set aside to let the strawberries release their juices. I usually put mine in the fridge to chill.

To assemble: Cut the biscuit in half, spoon some of the strawberry mix, add some whipped cream, and top with the other biscuit piece. You could even all more strawberries on top of the biscuit or dust with powdered sugar.

Notes:
I use more sugar than the original recipe in the biscuit recipe.
I used buttermilk instead of heavy cream in the biscuits since I didn't want it to go to waste.
I like to chill the bowl I will make the whip cream in before I use it, but that isn't necessary.
In the whipped cream, you could use regular white sugar, you may just have to beat it more so the final result won't be grainy.
You can store the leftover vanilla bean in a jar with sugar, to make vanilla sugar.
The strawberry mixture is great on pancakes too!