Raspberry and Blackberry Shortcake

I am making this, we are going to do variation on strawberry Shortcakes. I am going to use instead of just having strawberries, I use some raspberries and some blackberries also. Instead of whipped cream, I am going to use Italian Lemon sour cream. First thing I am going to do, I am going to pull my -- the flour is going to go into the bowl. I am going to start out with two cups of flour, all purpose flour. Now, into that I am going to put one stick of butter. Now the butter needs to be very cold. That's why I keep it in the refrigerator till the last minute. What I did ahead of time was, what I've done ahead of time, I've cut them into small pieces because I want them -- I want to work them real fast. Now, I'll put the butter and the flour in here, and to that I am going to add -- I am going to put about a teaspoon of baking powder. That goes in there, and about half-a-teaspoon of salt. Now, the butter is unsalted butter. I like to use, we call it sweet butter in the business. I like to use sweet butter when I do baking because I want to control the amount of salt that ends up in my dish. So once I have got the butter and the flour together, I am going to start working it together, and this would be the same process that I would do if I was going to make a pie dough. When I start out, I am just working it together. I am pressing the butter and the flour together, and rotate. And just keep pressing that butter in there. You see how it has started to incorporate into the flour. Once it starts to incorporate a little bit more, so each time I squeeze it together, I have got this in my hands, I am going to work it out with my thumbs to let it fall apart. We are getting there. Now, if I was going to make a pie dough say, for a pie dough that had a top and the bottom crust, I want the pieces of butter in there to be really big, because that's going to be my flakes later. So I want a flaky pie dough. But, for this, this is a short cake, and I am more interested in not really going for the flakes, I want it to be light. So I am going to work the butter in till it's in small pieces, just about this consistency here, and work it a couple of more times. Now, you see, you see how I got those small pieces in there. That's perfect. This one I am looking for throughout. Now, the next step. I am going to add three-quarters of a cup of heavy cream. I am going to work it, I am going to go in a circle, and I am going to fold it in. Everything is cold. So you want to keep everything cold. See the butter was cold, the cream was cold. You can see this, this here, it's going to be a little bit more - I am going to add just a little bit more flour. I can feel that it's a little bit sticky. So that, it's going to be dry now. So you can see how smooth it is, and you can see the dough now. Before it was kind of rough on that surface, and see now it's nice and smooth. Again, now since this is -- if I was going to make bread, I would need it for a little while till that developed and it pulled back. Like when I want to pull it, it would kind of draw back. But since this is the best bread. Bread is okay to chew. I am making dessert. I don't want you that you are hoping not to chew on my shortcakes. So this is just right the way it is. I have preset my oven to 400 degrees. Then, the next step, I am going to flour my board, okay, like so. Now, you could use a rolling pin here. That's alright. One of my first job was in the Pizza place when I was a kid and then when I learned to make pizza, I learned how to do it by hand. So I am just going to feel it, push it out. Now, the next step I am going to do. You have to use a glass for this, if you have a cookie cutter, it works also. I am just going to take in this case a glass. I am going to punch out my biscuits or my Shortcakes. I am going to get it punch right out at the dough. Just give a nice easy push, when I feel the table, I back off. There we go. Now, the next step. I have got my half sheet pan here. It's lined with parchment paper. Now, if I didn't have parchment paper, I could butter it or I could use on that spray, alright, I hate that spray. You can even put parchment paper and butter, a true chef can't get enough butter. One thing we don't run out of here is lot of butter. I will tell you. We always make jokes about that, oh, you broke butter, great. Now, my biscuits, short pressed, we go right into the 400 degree oven. I am going to check them in about 10 minutes to see how they are doing. There is really nothing to it. All I am going to do, I am going to toss them with some sugar, a little bit lemon juice, and if I have some fresh mint, I would put that in here too. Some finely chopped fresh mint. Now, I have got here. I got over here, I got some lemon juice. Sugar, how about two tablespoons? It's about the berries I used, there was a pound of strawberries, one packet of blackberries and then one packet of raspberries. Now, I am going to be really careful, because again I want to keep, I want my berries to keep their shape. I want people to know what they are having. I went through all that trouble to make dinner for these folks. I wanted to know what they are getting. You see the shine on those berries now from the sugar. What happens is the sugar will start to extract moisture out of the berry, and then mixes up, and make a little syrup. Just a few minutes before, you were just -- when it goes in the oven, now you can toss these together and as I said, you could let is sit for a couple of hours if you like. But, I don't want too much of the juice to run from the berry. I want the berry to hold its juice to mingle with the dessert. Now, the next step we are going to do, I have got here, this is one cup of - it's a light sour cream, okay. That makes it okay. Thank you, thank you, right. So into my sour cream, I have some lemons as I said that I have chopped this with a knife. You could also use the -- chef Bob's favorite tool used to be right here, the grater, remember the grater? Chef Bob thinks this is great. So you know what you could do is, cover this with the piece of saran, go on the fine side like if you have to grate about that coarse, cover the piece with the saran wrap, and use that, take the lemon, and just grate it on outside and then when we pull the saran off, then you can scrape the lemon rind off of the saran. I don't like to mess with plastic. I'd like to minimize plastic as much as possible. So I did mine by hand, the old fashioned with a knife. Now, I am going to put about a teaspoon of this lemon rind into my sour cream and I am going to put about let's say about three tablespoons of sugar, one, two, three, okay. I am going to stir this together. It's a lot less work than whipped cream I tell you. But like I said, it's a different variation on American traditional dessert. Now, once I have got that together, I am going to start to - if I had to wait for my biscuits, then I have to wait, but I have taken the liberty of preparing some of these ahead of time. It's going to give a nice white dish from the back. Now, when we start with these biscuits here, what I am going to do is I want to cut them and take this biscuit. I am going to cut it in half, and then cut nice and easy. So now, the next step I am going to do is, I am going to put the bottoms down the plate. Now, I am going to hold my tops in this side, and what we do next is I am going to spoon some of this berry right over the top. We are making a big one, this is my Uncle Joe right here, he can never get it, you always had to make a big dessert for Uncle Joe. On top of the berries, I am going to put some of the sour cream, lemon and sugar. Then, I am going to take my tops, and put this top, this dessert off like so. A hand-held - well it works really nice in home as your strainer, the little one. It's kind of big, but we are going to work with this one for now. I am going to put my confection sugar, in this case, I am going to just make it snow on the plate like so, and there we are.