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.
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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.
I haven’t really baked in years but being at home all the time now I decided to make my husband’s favorite cake Angel Food for his birthday. It didn’t look the best but tasted good. But now I had 12 yolks. Ran across this recipe and decided to give it a try. Found my Bundt pan (along with the Angel Food cake pan) way back in a high cupboard so I was set. Used rum extract. We tried both cakes side by side and loved them both. Highly recommend this cake. Not too sweet or heavy! I plan on freezing most of this cake to save for later
This is a cake from heaven recipe! I made the “6 Yolk” version. I was so happy it came out well. Yummm! It just works right. I’ve have a hit and miss history with recipes from the internet. This is nice, too, for it leaves room for different flavors, etc.👩🏻🍳. I made a Swiss meringue frosting.
Let’s all keep cooking together during this time of massive planet Earth change. Blessings to all who are working for us!
Did you half the entire recipe? I want to do the same so thought i’ll inquire first, Making pavlova from 6 egg whites so want to use the leftover yolks wisely. Thanks
Can this be used to make letters cakes??
yes
Wondering if you’ve tried sugar substitute baking blend trivia in this 12 yolk recipe. I made the angel cake recipe and need to use up the yolks. BTW- THE TASTE of the angel cake was delicious. Although, I encountered some sticking to the pan. Probably because I used a bundt pan.
I’ve read good things about Truvia, but haven’t tried it myself.
Used up all my leftover egg yolks from all my egg-white omelets this week to make this cake to take to church…i used GF baking flour instead of regular wheat flour with excellent results! The texture is wonderful, beautiful color, and the slightly crispy airy “crust” is so yummy. It is sure to be a hit in the morning!
I made this last night but altered flavors to make a key lime pound cake,I added 1/2 cup sour cream for moisture, then made a soaking syrup by adding lime zest lime juice and 2 packets true lime flavoring. Added to basic simple syrup recipe along with 1 tablespoon of butter. And let me just say it’s just to die for, I hope you will at least try this . Also please add 2 teaspoons lime zest to cake mix as well as soaking syrip
Sounds wonderful!!
Hi. I can’t seem to find Swans Down yellow sponge cake that uses 12 egg yolks.
Can you use cake flour in place of all purpose flour in the same amounts as all purpose flour in your recipe?
Do you know of the Swans Down cake I’m mentioning here?
Yes, you can get it here: https://amzn.to/2tYgwtx
To substitute cake flour for all-purpose flour use 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons cake flour for every cup of all-purpose flour. Make your own – one cup sifted cake flour (100 grams) can be substituted with 3/4 cup (85 grams) sifted bleached all-purpose flour plus 2 tablespoons (15 grams) cornstarch.
Can you freeze this cake?
Yes, to freeze: wrap the cake tightly with aluminum foil or plastic freezer wrap, or place in a heavy-duty freezer bag for up to 3 months
Can you put milk in this recipe instead of water
yes
Is there butter in this recipe
no