Having studied jurisprudence at the University of Vienna, he entered the government service in a legal capacity, and after holding various minor offices was transferred in 1843 to a responsible post on the Lottery Commission.

As a writer of comedies and farces, Bauernfeld takes high rank among the German playwrights of the century; his plots are clever, the situations witty and natural and the diction elegant.

From about 1825 (though he had met him earlier, and enjoyed some of his stage works) until his death in 1828, Bauernfeld was a friend of the composer Franz Schubert.

At his death Schubert left an unfinished opera Der Graf von Gleichen to a libretto by Bauernfeld.

There are Memoirs of Schubert and his circle (including the painter Moritz von Schwind who Bauernfeld had known from the Gymnasium (school) in Vienna and remained close friends with until old age) from Bauernfeld in Deutsch's book Schubert Memoirs by his friends.