These cute bunny buns are easy to make and only take an hour. They’re the perfect buns for Easter dinner!
Last year I made some bunny buns for Easter. I loved how they came out and I wanted to make something similar this year. Rather than use the same recipe, I tried modifying a 30 minute yeast roll recipe. I also wanted to see if I could fix the ears of my bunnies so that they didn’t stick up so much.
Last year’s sour cream bunny buns
I kept coming across this image for what I thought were bunny shaped breads. After some research, I realized they were actually Japanese manju. The pastry dough doesn’t rise as much, making it easier to shape the ears.
My first attempt, I tried to make deep indent for the ears, but didn’t make complete cuts, wanting the ears to stay on the body. Unfortunately, once they baked, the dough rose too much, and the ears completely disappeared. I tried a few more things, but determined it just wasn’t possible to imitate the Japanese pastries look with the bread since the bread rises too much.
So I had to go back to my original method. They are still pretty cute in my opinion. These are easy to make and are perfect for Easter Sunday. The yeast does not have as much time to rise as a regular bread recipe, so the dough is a little sweeter and has a little bit of a yeasty taste to it, but it’s still good. Since the dough was already sweet, I brushed the tops with honey too after they were done baking.
Last time, I stuck sprinkles in for the eyes. This time, I decided to try something else. I used thin chopsticks with a round tip to poke eyes into the finished baked breads.
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You might like my Easter hard-boiled eggs, too!
One Hour Honey Bunny Buns
Ingredients
- 1 cup plus 2 Tbsp warm water about 100°F
- 1/3 cup oil
- 2 tbsp active dry yeast
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 egg
- 3 1/2 cups bread flour
- 1/3 cup of honey warmed
Instructions
- In your stand mixer, combine the water, oil, yeast, and sugar and allow it to rest for 15 minutes. Using your dough hook, mix in the salt, egg, and flour and knead the dough for six minutes with dough hook on medium to high speed.
- Preheat oven to 400°F. Form dough into 24 balls and place on cookie sheets lined with silpat mats. Shape each ball into an oval shape, with one end (where face will be) thinner than the other end of egg/oval shape. Allow to rest for 15 minutes, until dough has risen at least 1 1/2 times original size.
- Take sharp kitchen scissors, and cut ears (see the photo from the post) from the more narrow/thinner end. Make sure you make the ears very deep cuts, almost to the bottom of the dough, otherwise the ears will lose their shape during baking. Bake for about 11-13 minutes at 400°F or until tops turn golden brown.
- While buns are cooling, brush tops with warm honey. Use chopsticks with round tip to poke eyes into the face of bunnies.
Nutrition
The nutrition information provided are only estimates based on an online nutritional calculator. I am not a certified nutritionist. Please consult a professional nutritionist or doctor for accurate information and any dietary restrictions and concerns you may have.
Can I use regular all-purpose flour??
We haven’t tried it, but it should be okay. You can use the same amount.
Quick, easy, and tasty! They seemed small but poof a lot in the oven. Great for a cute little snack.
I’m glad you liked them!
1 inch cut lengthwise for the ears I meant…
My comment is on the concept rather than the recipe as I made these using Rhodes frozen dinner roll dough. It came out beautifully I wish I could post a picture. I cut the ears probably about 1/4 of an inch lengthwise and had very “bunny like” results. I forgoed the honey and baked the rolls on top of a dish of baked artichoke dip and used the rolls to dip them for Easter. Turned out so cute and festive: so much fun!
Thanks for letting us know!
Will it stay shape if I shaped these into bear form?
It will expand a lot like while baking so I’m not really sure what your bear form is
These are so cute!!!
Thank you
These are too cute! What kind of yeast did you use?
Active dry yeast. Sorry I corrected that in the post.
I am excited about making these tomorrow..I love yeast rolls and this is soeasy..
I too saw the Japanese receipe and was so disappointed until I found yours..Thanks !
Hope you enjoy these. I’m still trying to find the manju recipe for those Japanese ones. Would love to try to attempt them some day.
Do I use rapid yeast or normal yeast?
normal active dry yeast! Sorry I didn’t specify. But it’s regular yeast in my recipes unless it’s something different and then I will emphasize it’s not the standard one.
If I were to say make one or two giant bunny bun loaves, what do you think the baking time and temperature would be?
You know, I’ve never tried to make these in anything other than small roll form, so I’m not sure.
Did you poke holes for eyes before baking or after?
They are so cute! I’m thinking of making it for my team meeting this week 🙂 I’m glad I found this blog! Thanks!
Sorry I forgot to do include that. Poke the eyes after, otherwise they will disappear during the baking.
I have question. Can you bake these bunnies ahead of time and freeze them to have on Easter?
They should freeze fine!
These are adorable! I’d never have thought of using scissors to cut out a pair of bunny ears, that is genius.
Ah, haha. It makes it super easy. I got the idea when it was the Year of the Rabbit.
Blog twin, these are insanely cute! I hate working with yeast, but may have to suck it up and make these bunnies…maybe 😉
Haha. Give it a try. The nice thing about these fast yeast breads is that it won’t take a few hours effort to realize if you’re successful or not. The worst thing about yeast recipes for me is having to wait around a few hours or all day only to realize I failed.
Awww they are so cute! Just adorable
Haha, thanks!