While nothing complements a cup of coffee better than a baked something, many area coffee shops really muck that something up. I've encountered croissants with the consistency of challah bread and muffins that were dense and gooey. I've had stale scones that eat like biscotti and stale biscotti that eats like limestone. Sure, a quick dip in the coffee cup can soften things up, but baked goods should taste delicious on their own.
One thing I don't see a lot of at coffee shops are biscuits, which is weird, this being the south and all. Composed of flour, baking powder, fat and a liquid, biscuits are the quick bread of choice for everyone south of the Mason Dixon Line. Nearly every restaurant that sells you scrambled eggs will sell you a biscuit, but coffee shops? Not so much.
Weekend Coffee in the Joule is one exception: They will sell you a biscuit that rose so high it toppled over and then kept rising to the side. They pair it with a little dish of butter and a little dish of preserves -- the coffee order is on you.
Breaking this biscuit apart into its generous, predefined layers, it's hard not to imagine a sort of biscuit utopia, starting in Dallas and spreading outward. Imagine if every coffee shop that's filled with crappy muffins and granola bars replaced these inferior baked goods with oversized biscuits that release a tiny poof of steam when you pop their tops off. A biscuit like that is worth getting out of bed for. And they're not all that hard to make.