My mom’s birthday is coming up soon, and for the first time in nearly two decades, I’ll be home for it. So, I figured I’d bake her a cake. Her favorite is angel food, so naturally that’s the type I’m planning on making.
But one of the ingredients for angel food cake is a dozen egg whites. OK, fine, but that leaves me with a dozen unused yolks. Is there any particularly good way to make use of that many yolks?
What you’ve got there is a great excuse to make Hollandaise sauce.
Make up some sabayon sauce. Great over fresh or frozen fruit.
Custard!
Lemon curd!
You could serve it with the cake, or use it in a different dessert later – it keeps for weeks in the refrigerator.
Cheesecake is good with some of the whole eggs replaced with just yolks. Makes the result solider, denser. I like it that way.
Ice cream
You could make a triple-batch of this fantastic raspberry curd! I made it for the first time last summer, and OH it is SO GOOD. I’ve made it with a number of different types of berries (raspberries, tayberries, blackberries, a mixture of a few different kinds), and thawed frozen berries work great. I’m not comfortable canning things with egg and dairy in them, but I froze jars of the curd and it was still fantastic, months later.
It would be great with the angel food cake, and it’s lovely on toast or ice cream or waffles. Or, y’know, on a spoon. 
Creme Brûlée of course!
The lime curd portion of this recipe for key lime cheesecake calls for 6 egg yolks. Since you’re already making one dessert, you may not be up for doing this at the same time. If she’s a fan of lime, though, this curd is just exceptional, and would likely be a tasty accompaniment to angel food cake.
Two egg yolks plus one tablespoon of water makes a substitute for one whole egg that’s acceptable in baking projects.
Or use them for cooked pudding.
32 ounces sugar
8 ounces cornstarch
1-1/8 teaspoons salt
Mix these together and stir in
1-1/3 cups milk
2-1/4 teaspoons vanilla
zmeanwhile, in a double boiler, have 4 cups milk heating.
Mix the egg yolks with 2/3 cups milk and stir into the sugar mix. Pour all that in with the milk.
Stir often until mix thickens a lot. It could take a while. When cooked remove the pudding from the double boiler and stir briefly to cool it. Pour into dishes, or a larger container if you aren’t using it right away. Allow to cool uncovered, then cover and refrigerate.
…And as it happens, when I mentioned to my mom that I wanted to make her a cake, she pointed out that she has a box of just-add-water angel food cake mix in the basement. Normally, I wouldn’t just use a mix, but given that the person I’m making it for suggested it herself, I guess that’s what I’m doing. So I’ll just file away all of these ideas in the back of the mental recipe book, for now.