Dolly Parton could not leave Dollywood without a funnel cake. The country legend, who died August 25 at age 80, made that plain in a Southern Living cover interview published in January 2025, saying she craved the fried dough so much she would send staff to grab one even when she was stuck on her tour bus or resting in her personal suite at the park.
Her words: “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 was quick to spread the credit around. Parton said her favorite thing to eat at the park was “everything,” and added, “I have to say, we have some of the best foods ever at Dollywood.” The funnel cake was still the one treat she named all by itself.
Two Stands and a Butterfly on the Plate
Two spots inside the park make Parton’s snack of choice. Crossroads Funnel Cakes sits in the Rivertown Junction section, and Splinter’s Funnel Cakes is over in Wilderness Pass. Cyndi McCormack, the park’s vice president of guest experience, told Allrecipes in 2024: “She loves funnel cake. She likes the cinnamon bread, but she is crazy for funnel cake.” Either stand gets you there.
The park does one thing with its funnel cake that most fairs never bother with. You can order it shaped like a butterfly, the same butterfly that stands in for the lowercase “w” in the Dollywood wordmark. The butterfly funnel cake is a signature item, and the shape is a wink at the whole brand.
The cake itself is not overly sweet. Crisp as fried chicken on the outside, pillowy as a yeast donut inside. That plainness is the point. It leaves room for whatever you pile on top.
The Toppings Go Way Past Powdered Sugar
You can keep it simple with powdered sugar. You can also load it up. The standard topping list runs through strawberry pie filling, apple pie filling, whipped cream, crumbled Oreos and hot fudge, and Splinter’s adds Mayfield ice cream. Allrecipes counted caramel sauce and fresh berries on top of that.
A few toppings push into fancier territory. Dollywood has run a honey and lavender version in spring, and a vanilla Chantilly cream that is lighter than the usual squirt of whipped cream. Which of them is on sale depends on when you go.
Allrecipes reported in 2024 that Parton kept hers classic. She never said so herself, so treat it as the park’s impression rather than her order.
Seasonal Flavors and a Red Velvet Standout
The flavors change with the calendar. The park runs at least four a year: a spiced Harvest funnel cake in autumn, s’mores in summer, red velvet at Christmas and honey and lavender in spring. If you go twice a year, you are basically eating two different desserts.
One version outranks the rest. The red velvet funnel cake, filled with cream cheese, was called the crown jewel of the park’s funnel cake lineup by Mashed. The cake stays mild, the icing does the heavy lifting, and the two balance instead of drowning each other in sugar.
What Else Is Worth Getting in Line For
The funnel cake may be Dolly’s pick, but the park’s best known snack is the cinnamon bread at The Grist Mill in Craftsman’s Valley. It is a pull-apart loaf soaked in butter and cinnamon sugar, served with apple butter and buttercream icing on the side for dunking. If you only try one thing besides the funnel cake, this is it.
Then there is the Potato Tornado stand, which turns a spiral-cut potato into a full snack. One version skewers the potato around a Nathan’s hot dog and calls it the Twisted Dog, which is exactly as ridiculous as it sounds.
For something heartier, Hickory House BBQ makes a brisket cheesesteak, a Tennessee spin on the Philly. A server there described a secret rub, ten to twelve hours of low smoke, at least an hour of rest, then a hot griddle with onions, bell peppers, provolone and barbecue sauce. And the Spotlight Bakery bakes a 25-pound apple pie in a cast-iron skillet, sold by the slice for around $25 as of May 2026.
What Dolly Ate When She Wasn’t at Dollywood
Away from the park, Parton’s tastes stayed close to the food she grew up on in Locust Ridge, Tennessee. Her all-time favorite was actually a good potato. “I’m just one of those people that I have to either have a baked potato, some mashed potatoes, or some french fries, or something to do with potatoes,” she once told TODAY.
Banana pudding was another one she loved, and the reason was pure nostalgia. Her mother bought discounted bananas from a neighbor who kept a store, calling when they were about to turn, and the dessert stuck with her for life.
Her go-to dinner was chicken and dumplings. “My mom was good at that, so I kind of follow her,” she told TODAY. Her own version never made the cookbook she wrote with her sister Rachel Parton George, “Good Lookin’ Cookin'”; she said it was not good lookin’ enough, so the book carries Rachel’s. She remembered Sunday fried chicken as “one of the greatest things ever,” and she cooked dumplings so often on movie sets that colleagues kept asking her to make it.
Peanut butter fudge was the other thing she made on set. She never lost her taste for Southern touches either, telling readers in that cookbook to cook their country ham in bacon grease.
How Funnel Cake Got to Every Fair in America
The snack Dolly loved has roots that go back centuries. Funnel cake became a Pennsylvania Dutch signature, though the food historian William Woys Weaver argues it was not identified as one before 1950, and that earlier on it was a Christmas and New Year novelty rather than an everyday cake.
The name comes from the tool, a funnel used to drizzle batter into hot oil, which is what makes the criss-crossing ribbons. The dish is older than the name. A version called mincebek appears in a late thirteenth century Anglo-Norman manuscript, yeasted batter poured through a hole into hot fat and bathed in syrup, which puts it in the same family as the Arab and Persian zalabiya. Where the word itself came from, nobody has established.
It became a fixture in 1950 at the Kutztown Folk Festival in Pennsylvania, where funnel cakes sold for twenty-five cents apiece. The recipe came from a local home cook, Emma Miller, whose grandson still tells the story. Once people got a taste, the fried dough spread to fairs and amusement parks everywhere.
That is the through line. A snack a Pennsylvania home cook was frying for a quarter eventually became the one thing a global superstar refused to leave her own theme park without. Next time you are at Dollywood, order the butterfly, hold the fancy toppings, and eat it the way Dolly did.
