If you’ve been following along with me this week, you already know I’ve been spending a little time in Dolly’s kitchen.
And really, how could I not?
I’ve loved Dolly Parton for as long as I can remember. Obviously there’s the music, the hair, the clothes and that incredible sense of humor, but what I’ve always loved most about Dolly is her heart.
She never forgot where she came from.
Dolly grew up as one of 12 children in the mountains of East Tennessee, and food was a big part of family life. It wasn’t fancy food. It was the kind of Southern cooking that stretched what you had and fed a lot of people — chicken and dumplings, biscuits, potatoes, cornbread, cakes and all those recipes that somehow taste even better because somebody you love made them.
Dolly carried those traditions with her even after becoming one of the most famous women in the world. She eventually shared many of them in her own cookbooks, including Dolly’s Dixie Fixin’s and, more recently, Good Lookin’ Cookin’, which she wrote with her sister Rachel Parton George.
That’s what inspired this little Dolly series in my kitchen.
I wanted to make some of those classic Southern recipes, talk about the stories behind them, and — because you know me — find a few shortcuts for those of us who love homemade food but don’t necessarily have all day to make it.
And judging from how many of you have been saving and sharing these recipes, I think you’ve been having as much fun with this as I have.
So let’s cook.
Dolly’s Chicken & Dumplings
Chicken and dumplings is one of the dishes most closely associated with Dolly’s home cooking. Her traditional version starts with chicken cooked with simple seasonings and vegetables, followed by homemade dumplings.
It’s exactly the kind of food I think of when I think about old-fashioned Southern cooking.
Dolly’s Traditional Chicken & Dumplings
Ingredients
For the chicken:
- 1 whole chicken, about 3 pounds
- 2½ teaspoons salt
- ¾ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 onion, peeled and left whole
- ¼ cup chopped celery leaves
For the dumplings:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoons vegetable shortening
- ¾ cup milk
Directions
- Place the chicken in a large Dutch oven or stockpot and cover it with water. Add the salt, pepper, onion and celery leaves.
- Bring everything to a boil, then reduce the heat, cover and simmer until the chicken is completely cooked and tender.
- Remove the chicken from the pot and set it aside until it’s cool enough to handle. Remove the meat from the bones and cut or pull it into bite-size pieces.
- Strain the broth and return it to the pot.
- To make the dumplings, combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Cut in the shortening until the mixture is crumbly.
- Gradually add the milk and stir until a dough forms.
- Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead it gently for a few minutes. Roll or pat it to about ½-inch thick and cut it into approximately 1-inch pieces.
- Bring the broth back to a simmer and drop in the dumplings. Cook until the dumplings are tender and cooked through.
- Return the chicken to the pot, heat everything through and serve warm.
And now, because I know we’re all tight on time, here’s the version I would actually throw together in my Crock-Pot.
Shannon’s Crock-Pot Chicken & Dumplings Shortcut
This keeps those same basic comfort-food flavors but takes some of the work out of it. I use shredded rotisserie chicken and Bisquick for the dumplings.
You still get that big bowl of creamy chicken and dumplings without spending half the day making it.
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 cup diced onion
- 2 ribs celery, diced
- 2 carrots, sliced
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 1 tablespoon Better Than Bouillon chicken base
- 3 to 4 cups shredded rotisserie chicken
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- Salt and black pepper to taste
For the Bisquick dumplings:
- 2 cups Original Bisquick mix
- About ⅔ cup milk
Directions
1. Add the onion, celery, carrots, chicken broth, Better Than Bouillon and garlic powder to the slow cooker. Season with salt and pepper, keeping in mind that the broth, bouillon and rotisserie chicken already contain salt.
2. Cover and cook on LOW for about 3 hours, or until the vegetables are tender. Stir in the shredded rotisserie chicken.
3. Stir together the Bisquick and milk just until a soft dough forms. Don’t overmix it. Drop spoonfuls of dough over the hot chicken mixture, leaving a little room between them.
4. Turn the slow cooker to HIGH. Cover and cook the dumplings for approximately 45–60 minutes, gently turning the dumplings about halfway through so they cook evenly. Check one of the larger dumplings in the center before serving; it should be cooked through rather than wet or doughy inside.
5. Give everything a gentle stir, taste for seasoning and serve it hot.
Another shortcut: If Bisquick isn’t your thing, refrigerated biscuit dough works too. Cut the biscuits into smaller pieces and add them during the final cooking stage.
That’s it.
Comfort food without making your own dough from scratch.
Dolly’s Coconut Cake
And then we have cake.
Because obviously we weren’t going to spend time in Dolly’s kitchen and skip dessert.
This coconut cake is exactly the kind of dessert I love: nothing weird, nothing trendy — just a beautiful, old-fashioned layer cake with cream cheese frosting and plenty of coconut.
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 2½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 20 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 5 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
- ½ cup sweetened shredded coconut
For the cream cheese frosting:
- 16 ounces cream cheese, very soft
- 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 3 to 4 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon fine salt
- 2 cups sweetened shredded coconut, toasted
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray two 8-inch round cake pans with baking spray and line the bottoms with parchment paper.
2. Whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
3. In another bowl, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla.
5. Alternate adding the dry ingredients and buttermilk to the butter mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.
6. Gently fold in the shredded coconut.
7. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans and lightly tap the pans on the counter to release any large air bubbles.
8. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out mostly clean with a few moist crumbs.
9. Let the cakes cool in their pans for about 5 minutes before turning them onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Make the Frosting
1. Beat the softened cream cheese and butter until completely smooth and combined, about 2 to 3 minutes.
2. Gradually beat in the powdered sugar, followed by the vanilla and salt.
3. If necessary, level the cooled cake layers. Place the first layer on your cake plate and spread frosting evenly over the top. Add the second cake layer.
4. Frost the top and sides of the cake, then cover the outside with toasted coconut.
Shannon’s Shortcut
Toast your coconut in a dry skillet over medium heat, stirring often, until it becomes golden brown and fragrant.
Don’t walk away from it. Coconut can go from beautifully toasted to burned ridiculously fast.
It takes only a few minutes, but it adds so much flavor and makes the finished cake look beautiful.
Why I Put These Recipes Together
This whole Dolly series started as something fun.
Then I started seeing how many of you were watching the recipes, saving them and sharing them, and I thought: Why not put everything together somewhere you can actually keep it?
Because I do the exact same thing you do.
I save recipes.
And save recipes.
And save more recipes.
Then six months later I have absolutely no idea where I put the one I wanted.
So I made you a little present.
Dolly’s Kitchen Favorites — Free Download
I put together a free mini cookbook with the Dolly recipes we’ve been cooking, plus a few Southern food favorites and shortcuts.
DOWNLOAD DOLLY’S KITCHEN FAVORITES FREE HERE
No digging through months of posts trying to find them again. Download it, save it, print it if you want to, and it’s yours.
And this is something I want to keep doing.
I’m going to try to bring you a new downloadable cookbook every week with a different theme, along with special seasonal cookbooks and some bigger projects that will be coming to Amazon.
If you’re part of my newsletter family, you’ll always be the first to know.
Most of all, thank you for being here.
Some of you have followed me for years — some of you for decades — and some of you just found Shannon’s in the Kitchen because a biscuit, a casserole or one of Dolly’s recipes happened to land in your feed.
However you got here, I’m glad you’re here.
Food is better when we share it.
Recipes are better when we pass them along.
And I think Dolly would appreciate that part most of all. Get your free download here.
With love and light,
Shannon Smith
Shannon’s in the Kitchen
shannonsinthekitchen.com
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