Searchingsearchingsearching Every Baking Aisle for Dolly
Dolly Parton announced a line of boxed cake mixes and it took me almost a year to find them. Also, I have a new teeny podcast.
I do have a confession – I knew very little of Dolly Parton until I met my friend, Jolene, named for Dolly’s iconic song originally released in 1973. I’m grateful for Jolene and I’m grateful to have become privy to Dolly, a woman known firstly for her illustrious music career, but also her distinctive appearance, her faith, feminine strength, and impactful philanthropy.
My obsession with the Dolly Parton line of boxed cakes began like most of my obsessions. With an implication of scarcity. During January 2022, I read an article about the new boxed cakes from Dolly and that a kit containing them had sold out almost instantly on the Duncan Hines’ website. I put myself on the notification list for the restock and fell into a research hole. When would the cakes be available at my local grocery store?? And a larger question – is there anything Dolly cannot do? Don’t even get me started on her collab with Taco Bell.
Dolly’s original baking kit included a box of her banana cake mix, coconut cake mix, buttercream and chocolate buttercream frostings, a Dolly-themed pot holder, a tea towel with the saying “If you are what you eat then why not be sweet” printed on it, a spatula with the same message, and recipe cards to make Dolly’s best baked dishes. Once I realized I had missed my initial option to purchase, I tried to wait patiently for March 2022 when these were scheduled to appear in stores nationally.
Mid-March, I called Cub Foods in Forest Lake, Minnesota (my preferred location) and asked a nice man named Carl if I could expect to find Dolly Parton boxed cakes at that location soon. He was certain they’d stock them but was unsure of a date. In April of 2022, Dolly tweeted that one could expect to see the cake mixes and frostings rolling out into stores. I called Carl again. By May, I called Carl one more time. In even our brief interactions, I could tell he had grown tired of me and that is valid. Sometimes I web searched to see if the cakes were somewhere nearby without my knowledge. But all I often found were boxes of the mix going for thirty-ish dollars on Ebay or Amazon. I tried to be patient.
Then I started physically visiting stores. A lot. In pursuit of these cakes. Cub, Walmart, Aldi, Whole Foods, Target, etc. My camera roll contains tens of strikingly similar photos of boxed cake mix sections of grocery stores, all deprived of Dolly. Every time I visited a store with boxed cakes, I stopped to assess.
In May 2022, perfect angel person and my absolute baking queen friend, Lauren, spotted the Dolly Parton cake mixes when she was on a trip to the southern portion of the United States. She made SPACE in her SUITCASE and endured inquiries from TSA to bring these to me and for her friendship and dedication, I am unworthy! But we don’t have central air in my home. So the oven pretty much does not exist during the warmer months. Because of this, I welcomed the cake mixes into my home gratefully, but they remained untouched for months.
In September, I got an email that the Dolly Parton cake box sets had returned to the Duncan Hines’ website. And I secured mine. After shipping costs, it was $56 for my kit as previously described. When it arrived, my enthusiasm was revitalized. I prepared the coconut mix with the chocolate buttercream frosting and brought it to my grandma’s house. She loves coconut, so her enthusiastic approval comes from a position of authority. It was a very delightful cake and, as it is with most boxed cakes, very simple to assemble.
If you visit the Duncan Hines website today, there is a countdown at the top of the landing page to the latest Dolly baking set drop. This one includes both her new fudgy and turtle brownie mixes, the cornbread and biscuit mix, along with a Dolly-themed tea towel, spatula, recipe cards, and a NOTE from Dolly. At the time of publish, the countdown says 12 days, 23 hours, and handful of minutes. But it is my hope that I can forget before the drop. Because I cannot sustain a Dolly baking set addiction on my salary.
After all my searching, Dolly’s box cakes can now be found nationwide. At least in the Midwest, they are stocked at most Walmarts. Most recently, I found the cake mixes, frostings, and brownie mixes at their location in Bloomington, Minnesota. It’s a sad place. Dolly looked lost, but I’m comforted to know she’s there. I bought a box of turtle brownie mix and I know she won’t let me down.
On January 19th of this year, Dolly Parton celebrated her 77th birthday. She also released a new song, Don’t Make Me Have to Come Down There, written from the perspective of a disappointed God. I love Dolly, but it’s one of the scariest songs I’ve heard in my life. The following day, she released a song called Gonna Be You, which is less likely to provide nightmares.
Mere days later, I made her banana boxed cake with buttercream frosting. It had a very distinctive artificial banana flavor and smell, but I legitimately love that. It was another delight. These are definitely quality boxed cakes, and it is just plain fun to see Dolly’s beautiful animated face (and inspiring hair) on their pink boxes. I definitely recommend them, and will be swooping up every variation as they arrive.
Gathered with friends, it was like we had our own little celebration of Dolly. She deserves it. And she already provides us so much, but I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.
This week I’m presenting a new means of relaying my opinions, via a new mini podcast I’m making called Xylophone Break. Every other Thursday, in addition to the newsletter, I’ll be releasing a brief episode where I’ll review a product and play the briefest tune inspired by it on my son’s xylophone. At this time, it is only available on Spotify but I’m WORKING on it for those of you with a preference for Apple pods. Thanks for your patience!
For this first episode, I reviewed Starry, Pepsi’s new lemon-lime soda meant to directly rival Coca Cola’s Sprite. As you may or may not recall, Sprite is very important to me. So I took this very seriously!
Thanks for reading/listening/both/either/neither. Chat in two weeks!