Dolly Parton is a country music icon — and a darn good baker, too! Anyone who's followed Dolly in recent years knows that baking around the holidays is one of her favorite activities, and now she's bringing her fans Southern-style classics that are a hit all year round. For the first time, Dolly is partnering with Duncan Hines on a line of cake mixes and frostings that harken back to her childhood including a Southern-style coconut cake and banana cake.

"I have always loved to cook and, growing up in the South, I especially love that authentic Mom and Pop kind of cooking,” said Dolly.

The line of baking mixes is made up of two cake mixes and two specialty frostings:

• Dolly Parton's Southern Style Coconut Flavored Cake Mix
• Dolly Parton's Southern Style Banana Flavored Cake Mix
• Dolly Parton's Creamy Buttercream Frosting
• Dolly Parton's Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

The brand also released a limited number of e-commerce kits ahead of the official store launch in March 2022. However, those kits are already sold out. If you're wondering what to expect when you can purchase these products in the spring, here's how one editor's Dolly-inspired baking project went:

My boyfriend and I love coconut, so whipping up Dolly's Southern-Style Coconut Cake was a no-brainer. Like many other boxed cake mixes, the coconut cake mix only required a few additional ingredients: milk, eggs and butter. The instructions on the box are specific: beat on medium speed for two minutes and pour into two 8-inch cake pans, then bake. (Mixing up this cake mix reminded me of days spent baking cakes with my grandmother, which I like to think Dolly would appreciate.)

Pretty quickly our kitchen smelled like the tropics. After about 25 minutes, the cakes were baked and ready to cool. Once cooled, I used a whole tub of Dolly's Creamy Buttercream Frosting — which was actually creamier than other store-bought buttercreams I've used in the past. If you like a lot of frosting on your cake, I might recommend using a tub and a half of frosting. The sides of our cake were a bit lacking in the frosting department. However, it wasn't anything some shredded coconut couldn't solve. I pressed shredded coconut onto the top and sides of the cake, masking any frosting mishaps.

When it was finally time to dig in we found the cake to be incredibly light. The coconut flavor was pronounced, and we could love the cake even without frosting (high praise coming from people who love buttercream). The frosting is indeed creamy and smooth, not grainy. And the addition of shredded coconut makes the whole thing feel homemade. If you don't finish the cake the day it's made, I recommend storing it in the fridge, as the creamy frosting does start to get a little too creamy and almost melts at room temp overnight.

All in all, Dolly's coconut cake was a winner and come March, I plan to keep a box in my pantry for whenever a celebration (or the casual Saturday cake craving) strikes.

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