Abstract Egg yolk remains a key ingredient of a number of food products. Yet, its main functional properties, e.g. emulsifying ability and gel structure formation, upon heating, have not attracted the attention of too many researchers specializing in the area of food colloids. It is not surprising then that there have been only very few major advances in the field over the period of the last few years. These are discussed in the present review and include recent research findings on competitive adsorption between yolk protein constituents at emulsion oil–water interfaces, and also on the relationship between yolk particle supermolecular structure disorganization and the rheological properties of yolk-based emulsions and gel-network structures.