I’m new to salted egg yolks. I have seen the flavor before, but always just assumed it was something I couldn’t make at home. It just seemed intimidating. But turns out… salted egg yolks are comically easy to make. You put some egg yolks in salt for 24 hours and then bake them low and slow for about 90 minutes. Done. When I found that out, and has some leftover egg yolks from a recipe, I decided to do an experiment, and made these Salted Egg Yolk Shortbread.
This experiment was mainly just to see how easy they were to bake with, and to make sure I liked the flavor. These were a great initial recipe. Incredibly simple, and lets the salted egg yolk flavor take center stage without much to compete with.
I think I’ll need to do more recipes with salted egg yolks, because they were easy, and also because I think there’s a lot more flavors to pair it with. I’ll do some research – it’s a flavor used more in Asian cuisine, and I am… obviously not well-versed in all the ways it can be used. But that just means more exploration to do!
My brother and sister both agreed that the flavor of the salted egg yolk is hard to pin down. Which sounds silly because it’s salted egg yolk. It definitely made this shortbread saltier. But also did just taste like you put salty eggs in it. The process of salting the egg yolks seems to do something more to them, and changes the flavor a bit. Or just strengthens it so much that it’s something you’ve not noticed in plain egg yolks before.
Regardless of my inability to describe these… they’re tasty!
Print
Print
PinDescription
The salted egg yolks take about 24 hours to make, so you should prep those a day in advance of when you want to make these cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 2 salted egg yolks (these instructions from Eat Little Bird are great)
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
Instructions
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- In a bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together butter and salted egg yolks on medium-high speed until smooth.
- Add powdered sugar to the butter-yolk mixture and cream together until smooth.
- Add the flour and mix on low and gradually increase to medium speed. Mix until no streaks of flour remain, about 1 – 2 minutes
- Cut a large piece of parchment paper. Transfer dough to parchment and take a second sheet of parchment paper the same size and roll out dough with a rolling pin. This will prevent the need to add extra flour to roll out the dough. If the dough is soft as this point, transfer it to the freezer to firm up for about 10 minutes.
- Using cookie cutters to stamp out cookies and transfer to prepare baking sheet. Repeat until all the dough is used up.
- Preheat the oven to 350℉.
- Once oven has preheated, transfer the tray of cookies to the oven to bake for 10 – 13 minutes, until the edges are golden.
- Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to cooling rack to cool completely.