Skillet Fried Honey Buns: How to Repurpose Mediocre and Dry Prepackaged Pastry to Artery-Clogging-Blood-Sugar-Raising Awesomeness

Fried honey buns.  MMMmmmm...  Mama's cooked these for our breakfast long before I was ever born.  I cooked them for her earlier this week.  

There's no way to make them part of a healthy diet, trust me, I've looked.  There's no way to excuse the refined sugars and animal fats in the dish.  You have to know that you have to cook these at least once in your life.  If you're a fan of Southern cooking, they'll be worth any temporary inconvenience due to adjustment in diet for the week prior to or after the consumption of them.

Mama said she started griddle frying them this way out of the need to feed her boys (really, I wasn't around when she started).  It'd come as no surprise to y'all to find out the entire fambly has a bit of a sweet tooth.  The brothers loved pancakes with syrup and syrup with biscuits and cinnamon toast by the loaf.  Mama says she looked at a honey bun one day in Mr. Maurice's grocery store and knew it could be heated with butter on the griddle for another sweet breakfast food.  I knew Daddy loved Mama but I'm pretty sure it doubled the day she fried the first one.  

Daddy was the littlest person in the fambly with the biggest appetite and worst sweet tooth.  One of his favorite sweets, when a rice or bread pudding couldn't be thrown together, was to open a can of sweetened condensed milk and eat it with a spoon.    He wasn't a big fan of chocolate, though.  I still think I might be adopted: Mama only likes milk chocolate.

Annnnyways.  I'm sticking close to Mama for the next few weeks and months.  We're going to meet with the surgeon about the mini(sternotomy) AVR the 31st of this month.  When I do a food post, it'll be prepped and cooked out at Mama's house on Havard Lane.  She has the good skillets we all want to rip each other's eyes out over  love to cook in.  Some of them were her mother's-in-law, they're just that durable and well-taken care of.

This is the little flat griddle that's seen more action than Chuck Norris (please pardon me, Mr. Norris, I appreciate you letting me live and humbly pay tribute to your actions that are second only to this little griddle).

Fried eggs for sandwiches, pancakes, grilled cheeses, and honey buns are the only things that have ever been cooked on this griddle.   

Add a blop of butter and turn the heat on medium to heat to melt.  There is no measuring.  A blop is whatever little bit is left in the wax wrapper.  It's usually enough.

When the butter is melted, unwrap (duh) a honey bun.  I like to place it on the skillet with the most stickiness down to get a coating of butter and quickly flip it over.

Turn the heat down and let it gently sizzle a little while.  It's okay to pick up the edge to check on the progress of the crunch crust the sweetened bread is beginning to make.

Don't get distracted by the washing machine, mother's telephone ringing incessantly, floor needing sweeping, etc. to check on it often.  I did.  The crust was a bit, uhmmmm, crustier than normal.  I ate the dark one since my taste buds prefer an almost bitter intensity to food (I think it was from all the chemo years ago -- taste buds have never been the same).

Flip it over to melt the glaze and caramelize it a little big and voila:  fried honey buns.  

All you need is a fork.  Y'all enjoy!