While they may not be quite how grandma used to make them, pumpkin bread, biscuits, brownies, cookies – or, of course, the traditional brownie – are all prime candidates for cannabis.
In baking, the flower starts to take on a new form – one that users have cherished for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. So, whether you are a budding novice in the world of marijuana or highly adept with a joint, read our ultimate guide to baking with cannabis below.
Why do People Bake with Cannabis?
Cannabis is an ingredient like any other; a natural plant that offers a whole host of potential benefits to those who consume it. Baking, rather than smoking, offers a few obvious benefits. If you do not enjoy smoking in general or dislike the smells of burning cannabis, then baking circumvents the need for you to simply ‘grin and bear it’ for the sake of intoxication.
Aside from that, there are plenty of other reasons why even regular cannabis smokers might choose to get crafty in the kitchen. First of all, the high is different (more on that later), and the effects are more prolonged, though slower to come about.
Secondly, it is much more discrete. If you live in an apartment building, for instance, then lighting up whenever you want is going to be an issue; the smell is a dead giveaway, even to the uninformed – and much more so than the smell of a freshly baked tray of brownies.
Some people don’t want to be too blatant about their cannabis use, others don’t mind, but enjoy feeling the full-body high that is only available with edibles. In much the same way that vegan baking or gluten-free baking offers a modified approach to a classic hobby, baking with cannabis is simply another way of exploring this special ingredient.
What do People Bake with Cannabis?
Everything and anything. The world of baking is always throwing up plenty of new surprises for us, and adept cannabis bakers are masters of modifying recipes for some THC content. Everything from the cake to banana bread is fair game for cannabis – but the quality of the bake really does depend on the ways in which the flower is incorporated into the mix.
Suffice to say that the first step to creating a perfect dough or batter lies in crafting your Cannabutter (cannabis-infused butter), which will act as the base for your baked goods. You can click here for a more thorough explainer on using your Cannabutter as a base for making soft, chocolatey cannabis cookies.
Of course, to make Cannabutter, you will first need to take on decarboxylation. We will talk more later on about what it means to decarboxylate your cannabis flower– and why you absolutely must do it.
The Benefits of Baking with Cannabis
Whether it is used medically or recreationally, cannabis a whole host of potential benefits from anxiety-reduction to pain management – and those are only the short-term benefits. Prolonged use is also thought to offer users a number of prospective advantages, particularly when they are suffering from chronic conditions and illnesses that impact day to day life.
What’s more, the palpable effects of consuming marijuana are a totally different ballgame to those felt during a smoke. Rather than an immediate hit, which is absorbed into the bloodstream via the lungs, you will have to wait a while for your food to digest. Patience is key here because, when those effects do start to manifest, it will be a totally new experience, even for the most regular smokers.
This is because, when compared with smoking, consuming weed means that the THC (the part that makes you high) reaches the liver in much larger doses. There, it is converted into a chemical known scientifically as 11-hydroxy-THC. Known colloquially, it is that potent kick that makes the effects of edibles so different.
Of course, there are many other benefits to cooking with cannabis. For one thing, it is a natural product jam-packed with nutrients and vitamins – just like any other ingredient we pull from the ground. In fact, it’s now being increasingly referred to as a superfood by virtue of the extraordinarily high levels of Vitamin K and C, and iron – among others. It is also a natural antioxidant, which is something you absolutely need in your body – and much more effective when derived naturally, as opposed to when they are taken via a supplement.
Cannabutter: Your New Kitchen Staple
Cannabis and fat go together like PB&J. Like the vitamins A and D, cannabinoids are fat-soluble and should be consumed alongside something like butter in order to metabolize effectively after you have consumed it.
This is why, rather than simply grinding your leaves and tossing them into whatever you’re baking, taking your time to create Cannabutter will ensure the best possible results. Since butter is a staple in virtually any baked good – and, obviously, a fat – it represents the perfect vessel for introducing THC into your sweet treats.
We have mentioned how decarboxylation is so important to ensure a good experience with edibles. This simply means treating it with heat – in your oven – prior to using it as an ingredient for baking.
Creating and Consuming Edibles: 101
For anyone just starting down the road of making and eating their own cannabis edibles, there are two things to consider – and remember – throughout the process.
Firstly, the cannabis flower, when acquired in its original, raw state, is not capable of causing intoxication. As we mentioned earlier, the chemical THC is responsible for those psychoactive effects, and THC is most commonly ‘created’ when heat is applied to the plant, and the naturally-occurring THCA is converted into THC.
This is why smoking creates an instant high, and why simply taking a draw on an unlit joint will have no effect whatsoever.
As such, it is important that you allow the cannabis to convert THCA into THC prior to baking. This is a process known as decarboxylation, and we will go into it more a little further down.
With that, the second thing you have to remember is that edibles hit differently. If you are used to smoking, you are used to the near-instant high garnered through a few direct-to-lung hits and, without managing your expectations, will feel a little disappointed after all that time in the kitchen.
It regularly takes users over an hour to feel the full effects of edibles. They need to work their way through the digestive tract first, and cramming another dose in on top of the first is a sure-fire way of ruining the whole experience for yourself.
Of course, if you’re a sweet tooth, holding off from grabbing another cookie isn’t always easy, but you will thank yourself for it when the effects start to kick in.