These little bunny buns are the cutest food I’ve made in a very long time. So so cute. I will admit right now – some of them look like cats. But you can tell they’re all at least trying to be bunnies. It’s actually a very basic and entirely painless process. Essentially, you mix it all together, leave it alone for a bit, then roll it around, a couple of snips and pokes later, and you’re done! Easy!
The dough itself is just a little sweet, so you could also play that up with a desserty filling like cream or chocolate or jam or something. It’s not too sweet to interfere with savory fillings though, so I went with Monterey Jack because Wee One #3 was helping and it’s her favorite. 3 of the 20 or so that I made leaked in the oven. My kids and carbs are best buddies though so they were happy to eat the deformed ones. 😉
I will use this dough again for sure. It has great potential for some kind of cinnamon bun situation! Or pizza pockets!
Sweet Bunny Buns via Kit Frazier
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup warm milk
1/3 cup warm water
4 tablespoons sugar
1/4 oz active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
Dissolve 2 tablespoons sugar in warm milk and water. Add yeast and set aside 10 minutes.
Stir in the rest of the sugar, salt and 2 cups flour.
Mix until the dough holds together and isn’t sticky, add more flour if you need to. Knead until smooth. Place in a greased bowl, cover and allow to double, about 1 hour.
After you punch it down and roll it out, roll a long log, cut into 18 pieces (you may get more or less depending on how big you make the pieces), and roll each piece into an oval shape. I filled mine with small pieces of cheese.
Use kitchen scissors to make small snips in the front of each oval, and use a knitting needle to poke some eyes (or I suppose you could use a toothpick or something, but the original recipe used a knitting needle too). The instructions I wrote to myself on the index card for this recipe were ‘Cut ears. Poke eyes’
If you use cheese (or whatever) as a filling, make sure you pinch the dough closed securely! It’s so not fun to make treats like these and see the filling running out of the buns in the oven! Also, bake them seam side down!
Before you pop them in the oven, brush them with an egg wash (1 egg and a bit of water). Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.