TWELVE YOLK POUND CAKE
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A great use of leftover egg yolks, Twelve Yolk Pound 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 Pound Cake to save it.
TWELVE YOLK POUND CAKE
When a reader asked me if I had a Twelve Yolk Pound 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 Pound 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 Pound Cake
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Save To Your Recipe BoxIngredients
- 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 vanilla
- 1 teaspoon lemon extract
- 1 cup cold water
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 golden brown or when 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.
Delicious & beautiful cake! I had left-over yolks from making a quiche. I needed to make a dessert for a get-together with girlfriends & found your recipe. It was a hit! What didn’t get eaten was taken home by the girls! My family didn’t even get to sample. Oh well, will just have to make it again
Irene, that happens to me too with desserts. At least you know it was good 😉 and can plan to make it again.
I am so excited to try this recipe! When I was a child my Mom always made a homemade Angel Food Cake in the Summer to gave with fresh strawberries. With the yolks from it she would then make a Cake she called Eleven Egg Cake and it was delicious. I never could find a recipe for it. This looks like her cake! Will comment once I make it!! Thank you so much!
I’m so glad you found it. We like it and it’s had great reviews.
I was separating eggs for a cake and for Merangues so when there were problems I put some of the whites with the egg yolks. Can I still use these to make this recipe or will it not come out right with whites in the mix? Btw sounds like a delicious cake, anxious to try!
It won’t hurt, if they’re a lot of whites, it may be a little fluffier.
Hi there 👋🏼 can I pls double confirm that I need make the tube pan Non-stick for this recipe?
(because when using it for chiffon cake, cannot grease it completely so the cake will ‘climb’ to rise).
Thanks.
I coated my pan just lightly.
OK thanks. I greased it, and it just came out from oven. Let’s see how it taste.
I cut 50% of the sugar.
I made this for my mother-in-law’s birthday. Her mom used to make this for her but has since passed. She said it smelled and tasted so much like what her mom used to make her. My husband loves it with a cup of coffee. This will become a staple for us!
I’m so happy you all liked it.
I’m so glad I made this on a beautiful spring day. When the house filled with smoke as it over ran my Bundt pan in the oven, I was able to open all of the doors and let breeze clear it out. And now I know that I only have a 10 cup Bundt pan, not 12 cup, and it definitely makes a difference! Regardless of the excitement, the cake is lovely and moist. Thanks for the recipe!
Perfect! Not too sweet, just a nice light cake. Followed directions exactly , only sub was Bob Red Mill 1 to 1 gluten free flour.
Great Cake!
Love the fact it is dairy free and “fat” free.
Made it with the yolks after an angle food cake. I used gluten free flour and took it out of the oven 5 min early so it is lovely and moist. Used the juice of 3 lemons as part of the measure of water and it help cut the sweetness. Bravo! I will definitely make it again.
It raised beautifully and probably great with sauce or ice cream, but thought it a bit dry and very sweet. Does it need butter or is it just too much baking powder? Maybe a little less sugar?
Cut back on your cooking time a little next time.
I made this cake once before and I had to make it again. But this time I thought I knew what I was doing and added the sugar into the flour. I am not scratching this batter and just added the water to the eggs and then added the egg mixture into the flour. Oh, I messed up but I believe it will be ok. If not my chickens will have a nice bread to eat. This bread was amazing the first time but be sure you follow her advice and read through the directions before you start preparing the batter. It’s not like other cake mixtures. I learned a lesson today😊. Thank you for your detailed explanation of this recipe. I love it when the baker talks us through how to dos.
❤️ thank you for your kind words. I have mixed recipes incorrectly myself – it happens. How did it turn out?
I generally don’t leave reviews on recipes but this one takes the cake 🙂
Like many others have said it has more of an angel food cake texture mixed with a sponge cake density, it was perfectly moist and had a gorgeous angel food cake crust on top, crispy and delicious surprise. It is not too sweet nor is it savory, we ate it as is and both of my kids adored it. I can’t wait to experiment with flavors but for now this couldn’t have been a better use of my 12 egg yolks– THANK YOU!
I’m so happy you enjoy it! Thanks for your kind words.
Thanks for the recipe. Was struggling to find a use for 12 spare yolks after making swiss meringue buttercream. I baked for 50 minutes and I think it could have been done at 40-45 mins as it was slightly dry in texture. I baked it in a chiffon cake tin.
Just came across this recipe. I have an old community cookbook that my grandmother submitted a recipe for 12 yolk angel cake. This recipe reminds me of that one. but less finicky. I have some yolks that need to be used so I’ll give this a go this weekend. Thanks!
This cake came out really good. It is more similar in texture to a sponge cake. I did check it at 45 minutes because I know my oven temp can be off and the pan I used is a darker pan, it was perfect, not dry at all. So glad I now have a recipe to use up a lot of leftover egg yolks in one go. Thank you!