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What’s beautifully blonde, approachable, and so good us mere mortals probably don’t even deserve it? Honestly, the answer is a tossup between Dolly Parton’s new cornbread mix from Duncan Hines and the queen of country herself.
Yes, Dolly is back with a second baking collection in collaboration with the boxed-mix behemoth. And for those of us with a defective sweet tooth, this one is even more exciting than last year’s limited-edition set because it contains not one but two savory mixes: the aforementioned cornbread and a buttermilk biscuit mix.
This latest collection also features two brownie mixes (Caramel Turtle and Fabulously Fudgy), but brownies get enough attention even without Dolly’s endorsement, and since the full set sold out before I had a chance to tell you about it, I want to get back to talking about cornbread. Crumbly, golden, ridiculously easy, perfect cornbread.
Officially, the product is called Dolly Parton’s Sweet Cornbread & Muffin Mix, but it’s only sweet in the way cornbread should be—which is not too sweet at all.
If you’ve ever made cornbread from a box, you know it tends to be dry and a little too crumbly. And if you’re anything like me, you have to slather half a stick of butter on a single piece—while it’s still warm—just to make it palatable. Not so with Dolly’s mix. No, our flaxen-haired earth angel saved us all the disappointment of bone-dry cornbread by instructing us, her hungry disciples, to put the butter right into the mix.
Like the coconut cake before it, Dolly’s cornbread mix calls for butter and lots of it. It’s not quite a whole stick this time, but you do need ⅓ cup of melted butter, which is still an impressive amount considering the fact that Jiffy’s corn muffin mix calls for exactly none.
How to make Dolly’s cornbread
Melting the butter is the most labor-intensive part of making Dolly’s cornbread—or at least the only thing you can possibly mess up if you end up scorching it—because this mix is EASY. Easier than her coconut cake. Easier than Kraft macaroni and cheese. Easier than instant potatoes.
That said, I’m really not a baker, and I’m almost embarrassed to admit I held onto the box for a few days before I got around to actually making cornbread. Once I finally started, though, I felt silly that I’d put it off at all.
All you have to do is dump the dry mix into a large bowl and stir in a cup of milk, one egg, and the melted butter. Then you pour the mixture into a greased (or in my case, buttered) pan and put it into a 375ºF oven. To make the whole process even simpler, the instructions break down cook times by pan size and no matter what pan you use, the whole thing takes less than 30 minutes.
There’s room to play around with this recipe, too. If you like a little heat, you can follow the alternate instructions for Dolly’s Favorite Jalapeño Cornbread on the back of the box. It’s just as easy as the basic version, but gets a kick from chopped jalapeño peppers and shredded cheddar cheese. I considered subbing in candied jalapeños, but my kids vetoed any peppers whatsoever.
Where to buy Dolly’s cornbread mix
If you love Dolly and/or perfect cornbread, there’s no reason you can’t make it with this quick-and-easy mix—unless, of course, it continues to sell out and you can’t find it in stock anywhere.
Tracking down a price-hiked box from a second-hand seller is one option, as is trying Duncan Hines’ sometimes helpful store finder. But my experience with the previous collection tells me that you might just have to be patient—and that you should definitely use technology to your advantage. If you can’t find it on the shelf of your regular grocery store, let an app like Instacart do the work of finding it at another nearby market.
Also keep an eye on walmart.com, which a representative for Duncan Hines recommended to me last year. As I write this, at least one of the new brownie mixes is available for shipping, and your local store may turn up a bigger selection of Dolly’s mixes.
When you eventually get your hands on a box, you’ll taste for yourself that Dolly’s cornbread mix is worth the wait.
