Many years ago, when I was younger and even more foolish than today, I took it upon myself to perfect the shortcake. I spent a week going through a dozen or so recipes from my favorite writers, baking each version, plotting the ingredients on a spreadsheet and then testing different combinations until I came up with the shortcake of my dreams.

What's so foolish about that? Absolutely nothing (although a tad obsessive, maybe). But then I had to go and proclaim it in print as ''The Ultimate Shortcake.'' And of course you know what happened then -- within a couple of months, I found a shortcake I liked better. ''Sic transit gloria pastry'' and all that.

The reason I'm bringing this up is that I was recently bitten again by the shortcake bug. I guess that's practically unavoidable at this time of year, when the markets are full of fragrant strawberries just begging for a little lightly whipped cream and a bite of something crunchy.

And although I'm no longer foolish enough to burden these new recipes with any extravagant claims -- at least not in public -- I do have to tell you that if there is any love for shortcake in your heart, you've got to try these.

Contrary to what you may have been persuaded to believe, shortcakes are not those little foam discs you find in the produce department at the grocery store. I'm not sure what those are. I would guess re-purposed GM shock-absorber parts.

A real shortcake is a lightly sweetened cream biscuit. If all you've ever had are those foam cakes, try one of these. They're rich and buttery with a slight crunch that sets off strawberries and whipped cream like a dream.

They couldn't be easier to make. Pulse most everything together in a food processor or on slow speed in a mixer, as if you were making pie crust. Pour in heavy cream and pulse a couple more times (not too many!). Turn the moist crumbs out onto a floured counter and lightly knead just to bring the dough together. Pat it into a circle, cut it into pieces and bake. That's all there is to it.

Indeed, making shortcake is all about technique. The main trick is handling the dough as gently as possible to avoid toughening it.

For the same reason, be sure to use a very sharp knife to cut the dough into pieces. In a hurry, I used a dough scraper on a of batches, and you could plainly see how the dull edge had compressed the edges, reducing the rise.

Although there is some variation in the ingredients among the different shortcake recipes, it's so slight that it really only points up how foolproof they are. For the most part, for 2 cups of flour (enough for 6 shortcakes) you'll use a tablespoon of baking powder, 2 ½ to 5 tablespoons of sugar, 6 to 8 tablespoons of butter and about ¾ cup of cream. Any combination within those parameters will work just fine. Which you choose is strictly a matter of how you like your shortcake.

One thing I found odd when digging through shortcake recipes was that, for all their popularity, they seem to have inspired little experimentation. That might be because plain and simple they are delicious.

But being a compulsive tinkerer, I had to play around once I'd worked out the basic dough. The first thing that came to mind was adding orange zest, the better to pair with strawberries. That worked well, with the citrus perfume lifting the flavor.

I decided to try another experiment. I like a bit of cornmeal in some dessert pastries -- it adds an intriguing flavor and just a little more crunch. So I substituted ½ cup of cornmeal for part of the flour. This, too, worked well with strawberries. Then I wondered what a savory shortcake would be like.

So I took the sugar way down -- just enough to balance the slight bitterness of the cornmeal and baking powder. It was good, but just a little too delicate. So I got rid of the egg yolks and tried again. This was much better, like a crunchy cornbread.

As much as I love sausage and cream gravy, a biscuit like this deserves something more elegant, don't you think? The last couple weeks I've played with the idea of a cream sauce spiced with smoked paprika. I tried it first as a sauce for schnitzel, a twist on the traditional Hungarian paprikash -- the flavor was good, but it ruined the cutlets' crisp crust, so I decided against it.

But what if I added some little cooked shrimp, sauteed mushrooms and Spanish chorizo? Wow.

I'm not going to call these shortcake recipes the ''ultimate'' anything. I've been down that road. Older and wiser, I'll just say that they are the best I've cooked so far. But tomorrow is another day -- and, the kitchen gods willing, perhaps another shortcake will come my way.

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