Soft, fluffy homemade buns are a quick and easy breakfast idea that is definitely a kid-favorite in our house! Add a hot drink and a smoothie and you’ve got yourself a nice balanced breakfast that keeps the kids fueled until lunchtime.

Breakfast can feel like such a chaotic time of day. Soft chocolate chip buns is something I used to buy quite often for my childrens’ breakfast. They became a go to choice in our house for a while. Having something convenient to just pull out of the cupboard and serve can ease up the atmosphere considerably.

I did have some second thoughts about the ingredient list of these prepackaged things that I fed to my kids though. So I decided to give homemade breakfast buns a try.

Baking bread in any form is seriously intimidating. I myself love cooking and baking but it took me until last year to finally attempt baking my own bread! But honestly, if you just try you’ll discover (as I did) that making these is almost as easy as picking up a bag from the supermarket (definitely less stressful these days).

There are absolutely no complicated steps in this recipe! You just need to have a bit of patience for the kneading and for the rise times. If you have a stand up mixer the making of the dough is a breeze. You just have to wait for an hour for the dough to rise, then shape the buns and let them rise for another hour. Pop everything in the oven, let bake for 12-14 minutes and there you have it: beautiful soft and fluffy homemade breakfast buns!

Homemade soft breakfast buns recipe

Ingredients

• 500 g (4 cups) of flour
• 230 ml (1 cup) of milk
• 50 ml (1/5 cup) of water
• 10 g (1 tbsp) instant yeast
• 50 g (4 tbsps) sugar
• 10 g (1 1/2 tsp) salt
• 80 g (1/3 cup) butter
• Optional add-ins: chocolate chips / raisins / chopped nuts

Eggwash:

• 1 egg yolk
• 3 tbsps milk

Instructions

Stir together the flour and the instant yeast.

Pour the milk and the water in a mixing bowl or in the bowl of your stand-up mixer.

Add the sugar and the salt and stir.

Pour in the flour and yeast mixture.

Mix thoroughly to combine and knead for 3-4 minutes.

Add cubed butter a little at a time and continue kneading until all of the butter is fully incorporated to the dough.

The dough has to become smooth and no more stick to the sides of the bowl. This will usually take about 10 minutes of kneading. The kneading process is definitely much easier if you use a stand-up mixer but, hey, hand-kneaded bread leads to some killer biceps 😉.

Let the dough rise for one to two hours.

Add the chocolate chips or raisins if you wish and shape the buns. This recipe makes about 16 medium buns or 20 small ones.

Place the shaped buns on parchment lined baking sheets and let rise for about an hour until more or less doubled in size.

Heat the oven to 200C/390F. Place an empty metal baking sheet on the bottom rack so that it will heat up as well.

Brush the risen buns with egg wash made of an egg yolk diluted with some milk.

Place the baking sheet with the buns in the oven and just before closing the door throw 50 mL of water on the preheated baking sheet at the bottom rack. This will create steam that will result in the most wonderful soft crust.

Bake the buns in the oven for about 12 to 14 minutes, rotating the baking sheet half way through if it seems that the buns are baking unevenly.

Let the buns cool on a wire rack and then try not to eat all of them at once.

TIP! You can also make the dough the night before. Shape the buns, place them on the baking sheet, cover with a clean kitchen towel and slide the baking sheet in your refrigerator. In the morning take the baking sheet out one hour prior to the baking and let rise. This way you can have yourself freshly baked buns for breakfast! As an added bonus your house will smell heavenly all day!

I hope I managed to make the breadbaking less frightening with this. If you have any questions or hesitations feel free to contact me on Instagram or drop a comment here on the blog.

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