Twelve Yolk Cake
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A great use of leftover egg yolks, Twelve Yolk Cake, is golden and tender. This is a delicious basic cake recipe that’s not overly sweet. Serve this with a good vanilla ice cream and rich caramel sauce.
Versatile and delicious, you’ll want to pin this 12 Yolk Cake to save it.
Twelve Yolk Cake
When a reader asked me if I had a Twelve Yolk Cake recipe, I became intrigued. She sad the twelve yolks made a pound cake and the twelve egg whites, in turn, are used for an Angel Food Cake.
Well, I had never heard of this but got busy searching through old cookbooks to see what I could find. The recipe below is an adapted version of a twelve-yolk cake that I found. As well, be sure to make my Angel Food Cake.
This is not what I truly call a ‘pound cake’ because it is more airy and fluffy than a traditional dense, small crumb, pound cake. In fact, I would classify this as a ‘sponge cake’ in texture.
However, Twelve Yolk Pound Cake is soft, rich with a buttery-like texture from all the yolks. Furthermore, because of the number of golden egg yolks, this cake has a lovely golden color.
You may also like these cakes
Make all my pound cakes, get the recipes> Pound Cake Reviews Series.
12 Yolk Cake Tips
- Coincidently, you can use your favorite flavoring in this cake. Good basic flavorings to try are vanilla, lemon, coconut, or almond.
- This cake is mixed together differently than most pound cakes. Therefore, you may want to read through the directions entirely before beginning the recipe.
- Twelve yolks make about one liquid cup measure. If you have medium or small eggs, you may want to measure them in a cup to assure you have the correct amount.
- You’ll want all the ingredients to be at room temperature. (Except for the water in this recipe.)
- Also, you’ll need to sift the flour before measuring. For baking, it’s very important to correctly measure all the ingredients. Flour is easily measured incorrectly. Please read this post on How to correctly Measure Flour.
- Serve this with ice cream and caramel sauce, chocolate sauce, or blueberry sauce.
Tools for Baking
- A larger bundt
- Or this tube pan
- Favorite spatulas
- For all my baking essentials, visit my Amazon Store.
Twelve Yolk Cake
Ingredients
- 12 large egg yolks room temp
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 and ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon lemon extract or vanilla or almond
- 1 cup cold water or milk
Instructions
- Prepare a 10-inch (12-cup) tube pan or 12-cup bundt pan with non-stick spray.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. (I recommend you Calibrate your oven!)
- Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together.
- In a mixing bowl, beat egg yolks until very fluffy and thick.
- Gradually beat in sugar and beat 2 minutes on high speed, stopping to scrape the bowl.
- Reduce speed to low and add vanilla, lemon, and cold water.
- Gradually, but quickly add sifted flour mixture while beating on low, scrape bowl.
- Beat only long enough to blend, about 2 minutes.
- Pour batter into prepared pan.
- Bake 50 to 60 minutes or until lightly golden or until a pick inserted in thickest portion of the cake comes out clean or with dry crumbs. (Watch closely if you haven't calibrated your oven. Baking pans can affect baking times as well. If it turns out dry you cooked it too long.)
- Cool cake for 15 minutes on wire rack before removing from the pan. Loosen sides of cake from pan with a spatula, then remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.
- Store in an airtight container 4 days or on countertop or 1 week in the refrigerator.
Nutrition
Nutritional information given is an automatic calculation and can vary based on the exact products you use and changes you make to the recipe. If these numbers are important to you, I recommend calculating them yourself.
Do you have to adjust the oven racks to the lowest position, like Angel Food cake?
I did not
The recipe was a great find to make alongside the 12 egg white angel food cake. I did not have lemon extract, so substituted orange extract. The cake has a wonderful hint of dreamsicle to it. It does have a crispy top, but on the whole it’s a very good cake.
I found a recipe for cookies that calls for 8 cooked egg yolks a few years ago. I’ve made it a couple of times, and they are delicious and very rich. Lots of butter, though:
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/184371/swedish-butter-cookies/
Thank you, Phil, I will check out that cookie recipe
I made this today during a blizzard, because I had a dozen leftover egg yolks from another recipe that I didn’t want to waste. I only had a 9″ bundt pan, but it worked okay, and I pulled it out of the oven at 40 minutes, and any longer and it would’ve been too dry. But it is delicious!! My roommates and I love it! I used lemon juice from a lemon instead of lemon extract, and I used around 3 tsp of the lemon juice, and it was good. I also made a glaze with confectioner’s sugar and the juice of the rest of the lemon, as well as some vanilla and water, and drizzled it over the top of the cake after it was cooled. And I also made candied lemon peel as a garnish for the top (I’ve been watching Great British Baking Show a lot, and Mary Berry made it so I wanted to give it a try with the rest of the lemon!) and it is fancy and delicious! Love this cake!
The GBBS is the exact reason I’m looking for cake recipes as well! Those technical challenges have inspired me!
I’m so glad I found this recipe! I hate wasting egg yolks and this recipe was perfect! Will definitely be making this again. Also, when I make pound cake usually use a brick of cream cheese. Do you think that could be added to this?
Thanks so much for this recipe! My dear hubby has been eating all the egg whites and the yolks were adding up. This cake worked beautifully. I used two round cake pans since I don’t have a bundt pan, and had to adjust for higher elevations, but this is a wonderful recipe. I did get a thin crisp layer on top and I’m not sure if the cake was supposed to have it, or if it was the cause of my adjustment for high altitude baking, but it was a lovely texture that enhanced the rest of the cake. Great recipe!!
Had 12 yolks left over from making an angel food cake. Glad I found your recipe. I just made this cake and used Banana extract with the vanilla extract. It’s good, can’t wait to make it again and try it with a different flavor. Thanks!!
My cake in the oven. I am concerned because my batter is thin. Is it supposed to be? I followed the recipe perfectly.
It is thin
This looks delicious and would be perfect since I’ll have leftover egg yolks! I was wondering if fresh lemon juice and/or zest could replace the lemon extract, and if so, how much would be used? Thanks in advance!
You can. I’d use 1 teaspoon of extract.
Can i use cooked egg yolks? I usually throw away the egg yolks from hard boiled eggs; i use spicy hummus for deviled eggs.
No, the yolks cannot be cooked
I found a recipe for cookies that calls for 8 cooked egg yolks a few years ago. I’ve made it a couple of times, and they are delicious and very rich. Lots of butter, though:
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/184371/swedish-butter-cookies/