The order came from the tour bus, or from the suite above the park, and somebody had to go get it. Dolly Parton could have eaten anything she wanted inside the theme park with her name on it, 160 acres of rides and restaurants in the Great Smoky Mountains, and the one thing she refused to leave without was fried dough. Not the cinnamon bread the park is arguably more famous for. Funnel cake, hot, buried in powdered sugar.
Parton, who died on August 25, 2026, at 80, said it plainly herself about a year and eight months earlier, and once you know that, the home version stops being a county fair novelty and starts being worth doing properly on a Saturday afternoon.
The Snack She Sent Someone Out For
In a January 2025 interview with Southern Living, timed to the run-up to Dollywood’s 40th anniversary, Parton was asked what she had to eat at the park. She was 78 at the time, days short of her 79th birthday. “Even if I’m in my bus or The Dolly Suite, I say, ‘Run get me some funnel cakes. I can’t leave here without funnel cakes,’” she said. She added that the park has some of the best food anywhere.
Technically she said her favorite thing to eat at Dollywood was everything. The funnel cake is the one she named twice.
Dollywood opened in 1986 in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and now runs more than 50 rides across roughly 160 acres, according to the park. The site had a life before that: the original park there opened in 1961 as Rebel Railroad, became Goldrush Junction, then Silver Dollar City, before Dolly Parton put her name on it. The park is the largest employer in Sevier County.
Crossroads Funnel Cakes, And The Butterfly
The stand in question is Crossroads Funnel Cakes in Rivertown Junction, though funnel cakes are sold at more than one spot inside the gates. Parton never said what her exact order was. What the stand does say is that a funnel cake comes hot, plain or under powdered sugar, and that you can ask for it fried in the shape of a butterfly. The butterfly is the park’s own symbol; it sits right in the Dollywood logo, and it goes back to her 1974 song “Love Is Like a Butterfly.”
The toppings list is long and not shy. Strawberry pie filling, apple pie filling, whipped cream, crumbled Oreos, hot fudge, and over at Splinter’s, a scoop of Mayfield ice cream. Seasonal versions rotate through, with a red velvet funnel cake under cream cheese icing at Christmas and a spiced Harvest funnel cake drizzled with caramel in the fall. Parton herself once made the park’s lavender honey funnel cake on television.
My honest read after going through everything the park puts on that menu: the cinnamon sugar version is the one to copy at home. It is the one that survives the trip from the fryer to the table without going soggy, and it is the one that still tastes like a funnel cake instead of a sundae with a crust.
Why The Batter Should Not Be Sweet
Most homemade funnel cakes fail before the oil is even hot, because people dump a half cup of sugar into the batter and end up with something closer to a doughnut. The funnel cake at Dollywood works because the fried part is not very sweet on its own. That is what lets the powdered sugar, the cinnamon, the fruit filling or the fudge register as a topping instead of a second helping of the same thing.
Three tablespoons of granulated sugar in two cups of flour is plenty. The batter itself should taste faintly sweet, like a pancake, and slightly salty. Everything else goes on top after it comes out of the oil.
The texture you are aiming for is a shell that shatters a little when you tear into it and a middle that stays soft and slightly chewy. Thin batter gives you lace and crunch. Thick batter gives you fried bread. If the batter falls off a spoon in a ribbon and settles back into itself in a couple of seconds, you are in the right place. Too thick, and you add milk a tablespoon at a time.
The Oil Temperature Is The Whole Job
Set a clip-on thermometer on the side of a deep skillet or Dutch oven and bring the oil to 375 degrees. Use enough vegetable or canola oil to sit about an inch and a half deep, which is roughly six cups in a 10-inch pan. The cake needs to float and swim, not sit on the bottom.
Let the oil run cool and the batter drinks it, and the finished cake goes limp and greasy within a minute. Run it too hot and the outside browns before the inside cooks. The temperature drops hard the second cold batter hits it, often by 50 degrees or more depending on your pan and your burner, so let the oil climb back up between batches. That pause is not wasted time. It is the difference between the first funnel cake and the fourth one tasting the same.
You do not need an actual funnel. A plastic squeeze bottle (the kind sold for ketchup at any grocery store) gives you the most control, and a zip-top bag with a corner snipped off works fine. A liquid measuring cup with a spout does the job if you pour slowly. Start in the middle of the oil, make a tight spiral outward, then cross back over the spiral a few times so the strands fuse. A finished cake should be six or seven inches wide, about the size of a salad plate.
Fry roughly a minute and a half on the first side, flip once with tongs, and give it another minute. Drain on a wire rack over a sheet pan. Paper towels trap steam and undo everything you just did.
Cinnamon Sugar First, Everything Else Second
Hit the cake with cinnamon sugar while it is still hot and glossy, because that is the only moment it will stick. Half a cup of granulated sugar with a teaspoon and a half of ground cinnamon coats six cakes. Powdered sugar goes on last, through a fine mesh strainer, and it should look like too much. At the park it always does.
If you want to chase the Dollywood menu, the strawberry and apple pie filling versions are the easiest to pull off at home with a can and a spoon. Cream cheese icing, thinned with a splash of milk and drizzled warm, is closer to what the park does during its spring festival. Hot fudge and crushed Oreos are fine and will make children extremely happy. Ice cream is the one topping I would skip unless you serve it on the side, because it turns the middle to mush in about 90 seconds.
The butterfly shape is more achievable than it sounds. Pipe two overlapping loops on one side, two on the other, then run a thicker line of batter down the center to join them before the edges set.
Mistakes That Ruin It
Making the batter an hour ahead is the most common one. Baking powder starts working as soon as it meets liquid, and while double-acting powder holds most of its lift back for the heat of the oil, a batter that has sat for an hour has already spent its first rise. Mix it while the oil heats.
Crowding the pan is the second. Two cakes in one skillet steal heat from each other and stick together at the edges. One at a time, every time.
The third is holding them. Funnel cake has a shelf life of about five minutes. Nobody in Pigeon Forge is handing you one that has been sitting under a lamp, and you should not do it to yourself either. Fry, sugar, eat, repeat. If you have to hold a few for a crowd, keep them on a rack in a 200-degree oven and sugar them at the last second.
Old oil is the quiet one. Oil that has already fried chicken or fish will pass that on, and the whole point of this recipe is a clean, sweet, fairground smell coming off the pan.
It Fits The Rest Of Her Plate
Nothing about this choice is out of character. Parton grew up in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, and her favorites stayed there: fried chicken on Sundays, banana pudding, coconut cake, chicken and dumplings that she announced a couple of days in advance on set so everyone had something to look forward to, and something with potatoes every single day. Her 2024 cookbook with her sister Rachel Parton George runs on the same fuel.
Funnel cake came over with the Pennsylvania Dutch and has been a fairgoer’s staple in this country since it hit the festival circuit around 1950, and it costs almost nothing to make. Flour, sugar, eggs, milk, oil. A woman who built a park in her own hometown picking the cheapest sweet on the midway over anything else on the property tracks perfectly.
If you want the full park experience at home, the cinnamon bread from The Grist Mill is the other thing worth recreating. But the funnel cake is faster, and it is the one she asked for by name. Dollywood’s own chef, Matthew Poorman, has even shared the park’s official version. Mine below is the cinnamon sugar one, built to fry well in a home kitchen without a commercial fryer.
Dollywood-Style Cinnamon Sugar Funnel Cakes
Course: DessertCuisine: American6
servings15
minutes30
minutes450
kcalCrisp, lacy fried dough buried in cinnamon sugar, the one snack Dolly Parton refused to leave Dollywood without.
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups whole milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
6 cups vegetable or canola oil, for frying
1/2 cup granulated sugar mixed with 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, plus powdered sugar for dusting
Directions
- Pour the oil into a deep 10-inch skillet or Dutch oven so it sits about an inch and a half deep, and clip a thermometer to the side. Set it over medium heat and bring it to 375 degrees while you mix the batter. Line a sheet pan with a wire rack and set it near the stove.
- Whisk the flour, granulated sugar, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl. Break up any lumps of baking powder against the side of the bowl with the whisk. The batter is only lightly sweet on purpose, so do not add more sugar here.
- In a second bowl, beat the eggs, then whisk in the milk and vanilla until smooth. Pour the wet mixture into the dry and whisk just until no dry flour is left. A few small lumps are fine; overmixing makes the cakes tough.
- Check the consistency. The batter should run off a spoon in a steady ribbon and settle back into itself within a couple of seconds. If it is too thick, whisk in milk one tablespoon at a time; if it runs like water, whisk in a tablespoon of flour.
- Transfer the batter to a plastic squeeze bottle, a funnel with your finger over the spout, or a zip-top bag with a corner snipped to about a quarter inch. Work in batches so the batter does not sit for long. Do not fill the bottle more than three-quarters full.
- When the oil reads 375 degrees, hold the bottle close to the surface and squeeze out about half a cup of batter in a tight spiral starting at the center and moving outward. Cross back over the spiral four or five times so the strands lock together. Keep the finished cake to about six or seven inches across, and fry only one at a time.
- Fry for about a minute and a half, until the edges are deep golden and the bubbling slows. Slide two forks or tongs under the cake and flip it in one motion, then fry another minute. Lift it out and let it drain on the wire rack, never on paper towels.
- Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the cake while it is still hot and shiny so it sticks, then dust heavily with powdered sugar through a fine mesh strainer. Serve right away. Let the oil climb back to 375 degrees before the next cake goes in.
Notes
- For the butterfly shape the park is known for, pipe two overlapping loops on one side, two on the other, then run a thicker line of batter down the middle to join them before the edges set.
- Mix the batter while the oil heats. Baking powder starts working the moment it hits liquid, and batter that has sat for an hour has already spent its first rise.
- To go further toward the Dollywood menu, add canned strawberry or apple pie filling, warm cream cheese icing thinned with a splash of milk, hot fudge, or crushed Oreos. Serve ice cream on the side rather than on top.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What was Dolly Parton’s favorite thing to eat at Dollywood?
A: Funnel cake. She said in a January 2025 interview with Southern Living that she could not leave the park without one, and that she would send someone out for funnel cakes even when she was on her tour bus or up in The Dolly Suite. The park’s funnel cake stand, Crossroads Funnel Cakes, sits in Rivertown Junction.
Q: Do I need an actual funnel to make funnel cake?
A: No. A plastic squeeze bottle gives you the most control over the stream of batter, a zip-top bag with a snipped corner works fine, and a liquid measuring cup with a spout will do if you pour slowly. A real funnel works too as long as you keep a finger over the spout between pours.
Q: What oil temperature should I use?
A: 375 degrees, checked with a clip-on thermometer. Run it cool and the batter soaks up oil and goes greasy; run it hot and the outside browns before the middle cooks. The temperature drops sharply as soon as cold batter hits it, so wait for it to recover between cakes.
Q: Can I reheat leftover funnel cake?
A: Reheating is a compromise at best, but a few minutes on a wire rack in a 350-degree oven brings back some of the crunch. Skip the microwave, which steams the cake limp. Add fresh cinnamon sugar and powdered sugar after reheating, not before.
