Can I make these into smaller shortcakes?

Absolutely! Our family loves dessert, so we always made this recipe into 4 shortcakes. But feel free to make 6 smaller strawberry shortcakes if you need to feed a larger group or just want a smaller portion of dessert.

I have some buttermilk on hand. Can I use that in this recipe?

Using buttermilk in place of the regular milk will add a nice tang to these shortcakes. If you want to do this, make sure you add some baking soda to the recipe, though – 1/2 teaspoon or so should do the trick.