A Complete Guide To Cooking With Cannabis In 2021

How To Make Weed Edibles- A Stok’d Guide To Cooking With Cannabis

Cooking with cannabis? Is that a thing? Why would I want to eat weed instead of, say, vape or smoke it?

For every marijuana smoker, there’s nothing as refreshing as unwinding over a calming indica after a long, unforgiving day. Whether you’re huddled over a demanding school project or dealing with a lot at work, you can trust Mary and Jane to always have your best interests at heart. 

When you inhale cannabis smoke, the active cannabinoids are absorbed by your lungs and deposited in the bloodstream almost immediately. This makes smoking and vaping the quickest ways of consuming marijuana and by far the most common. 

That said, some people are uncomfortable smoking weed yet would like to enjoy the numerous benefits and effects of THC. Others just want to get creative and explore other ways of consuming weed.

What about infusing your favorite cannabis strain into your favorite meals? In this article, we will let you know all there is to know about cooking with cannabis.

Cooking With Cannabis: A Few Things You Should Know

If you searched online, you’re likely to find a recipe for any cannabis-infused meal you could think of. Cooking with cannabis tincture is the wave now, and there are a lot of benefits to making your own weed edibles. 

For one, it allows you to accurately measure up a dosage you’re comfortable with. Second, ingesting cannabis results in an incredibly potent high, especially if the weed was well decarboxylated. Before you look online for recipes on cooking with cannabis butter, here are a few things you should know:

Cannabis Is Insoluble In Water

THC, CBD, and other cannabinoids present in marijuana are insoluble in water. This largely limits their bioavailability. They do, however, dissolve readily in fatty acids. To make edibles, you’ll, therefore, need to ‘activate’ the THC by mixing it up with some butter, coconut oil, or hemp oil and heating it up. This process is called decarboxylation.

Is Decarboxylation Necessary For Edibles?

Although most people know THC and CBD to be the most abundant cannabinoids in marijuana, these compounds are technically almost never present in the plant, to begin with. Instead, each of these cannabinoids has a carboxyl group attached to its chain, making them acids.

For example, THC exists as THCA (tetrahydrocannabinol acid) and CBD as CBDA (cannabidiolic acid); in these forms, these compounds are inactive, thus won’t bring about strong effects, if any. 

To ‘activate’ them, you have to get rid of this carboxylic group. This process is called decarboxylation. Once the decarb process is complete, your cannabis will be active and ready for cooking. 

How To Decarb Weed In An Oven

Decarboxylation is when THCA and CBDA in marijuana are converted to THC and CBD, respectively.  Although this process occurs naturally over time, it can be accelerated when exposed to heat, oxygen, and light. 

Before you start cooking with cannabis, you’ll need to expose it to low heat for an extended period of time. The following procedure will help you decarboxylate your cannabis right from your home!

What You Need

• Your preferred cannabis strain
• An oven
• Non-stick baking tray
• Baking sheets
• Timer 

Procedure

• Break down your buds into small chunks. Don’t use a grinder; your fingers or a pair of scissors will do.
• Preheat the oven to 250°F. This is the ideal temp at which the decarboxylation reaction occurs without burning your weed.
• Spread out your chunks of weed on a sheet of baking paper. Make a relatively even film.
• Let your cannabis bake at 250°F for 25-30 minutes.
• Check on your marijuana. It should be a shade of brown at this point and very dry. Make sure it doesn’t burn.
• Take your cannabis out and let it cool.

Cooking With Cannabis Butter Recipe- How To Make Cannabis Butter

Although your weed is now activated, it is not all the way ready to make edibles. You need a medium to dissolve the THC and make an extract. Many cannabis recipes utilize butter, but any fat or oil would work just as well. Making cannabutter will ensure you have decarb THC handy whenever you need to make an infused meal. 

Follow this procedure when making cannabis butter at home:

• Melt the butter- Place a stick of butter in a saucepan and add one cup of water. Let it simmer on low heat. Butter burns quite easily; the water will keep this from happening. 

• Pour in the cannabis- Put the mixture on low heat, and allow to simmer for about two and a half hours. Make sure the mixture never starts to boil. Leave it to cool. 

• Jar-ing your cannabutter- Using a funnel and a cheesecloth, strain the cannabis water and butter mixture into a glass jar. 

There you have it- your own homemade cannabis butter! You can store your butter in the refrigerator and pull it out when you want to cook with cannabis. You can use your cannabis butter in a thousand different ways: baking, cooking, making teas, chocolates, gummies, etc.

Cooking With Cannabis For Beginners

Baking with cannabis is the way to consume cannabis and enjoy all its benefits without worrying about inhaling its smoke.

What’s more, it’s a fun and engaging activity and is a pleasant way to spend the day. If you’re up for it, call a friend and make a weekend out of this baking experience!

Baking with cannabis is not complicated; Here are a few recipes that will guide you through making potent weed edibles from the comfort of your kitchen:

Recipe 1: Homemade Weed Brownies

Brownies are a classic pastry in many people’s homes. For the average weed enthusiast, they are the pastry. Easy to make and pleasantly-flavoured, learning how to make a good weed brownie is vital if you’re looking to start cooking with cannabis tincture. 

What you need

• ½ cup melted cannabutter
• 1 cup white sugar
• ¼ tsp salt
• ½ cup flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• ¼ tsp baking powder
• ⅓ cup non-sweet baking powder

Procedure

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. Baste an 8” baking pan with grease and flour. You could also simply line it with parchment paper.
3. Mix the eggs, butter, and vanilla essence in a large bowl. 
4. Pour in the flour, sugar, salt, cocoa and baking powder. Beat to a fine consistency.
5. Pour out the mixture onto the pan.
6. Leave to bake for about 30 minutes.
7. Take out and let it cool.

Serve with coffee, tea, or fruit juice. Remember to pay special attention to the dosage to ensure you don’t take too much. Everyone has a story about the one time they took more edibles than they should have, and it’s hardly ever a pleasant experience. 

Recipe 2: Homemade Cannabis Shortbread Cookies

These tasty treats require only 3 ingredients to bake. This recipe will show you how to make a fresh batch of potent cannabis shortbread cookies in almost no time. 

What you need

• ½ cup cannabutter
• 1 ½ cups of flour
• ¼ cup of sugar

Procedure 

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
2. Place the cannabutter and sugar in a bowl and beat together into a consistent mixture.
3. Pour in the flour and mix to a smooth doughy paste.
4. Place the dough on a surface with flour, roll it out and cut it into shapes.
5. Place in the fridge and chill for about 15 to 20 minutes
6. Bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes; take them out when they turn the lightest shade of brown.

Recipe 3: Homemade Cannabis-Infused Tea

Cannabis tea is easy and quick to make. It allows for a ton of experimentation and herbal alchemy: for example, you could try out many different tea blends, honey, and spices. You can prepare cannabis tea in a variety of ways. 

One method of making weed tea is adding-ready made cannabis-tincture to the tea. Another involves adding cannabis-infused butter or oil to a tea, coffee, or chocolate drink, making some kind of latte. The last method, though simple, is less potent and involves steeping dry cannabis flower in hot water for an extended time. 

Here is a simple recipe to guide you through making your first pot of potent, homemade cannabis tea: 

What you need

• Ground cannabis
• 4 cups of water
• 1 tablespoon of unsalted butter/ coconut oil, other fats and oils
• 1 tea bag with your preferred blend of tea
• Honey/ sugar, cinnamon/ ginger/ rosemary, other spices
• A fine strainer/ cheesecloth
• A teapot

If you’d like, you can add some milk as well. 

Procedure

1. Boil 4 cups of water in a pot. Add the butter/ coconut and let it melt and dissolve completely. 
2. Add your ground weed to the pot, turn down the heat and allow to simmer.
3. Leave the pot in low heat for 15 to 25 minutes, even longer for more potent tea.
4. Using a strainer or cheesecloth, strain your cannabis tea into your teapot.
5. Place your tea bag in the teapot and let it steep for about 4 minutes. Add sugar/ lemon/ honey/ cinnamon/ rosemary at this point to mask the cannabis taste.

Enjoy your homemade weed tea! (If you used 1 gram of cannabis, one cup should be enough)

How To Choose A Dosage When Cooking With Cannabis

While smoking weed leads to a quicker high, edibles result in a much more potent kick. This is because the decarb process you put your weed through when making cannabutter increases its bioavailability. You should, therefore, be very deliberate and accurate when choosing a dosage for your weed edibles. 

Different people have different tolerances to weed; different strains of weed also affect people differently, depending on a ton of variants and factors.

When cooking with cannabis wax, you should pay attention to the THC content of the strain you wish to use. A strain that contains, say, 20% THC by mass, this means 5 grams would have 1000 mg of THCA. 

If, during the decarb process, 90%  of the THCA is converted to THC, you’ll have 900 mg of THC. If while mixing with butter only 60% of THC is extracted, you’ll have 540 mg of THC.

This is enough to make 54 portions of edibles if each piece will contain 10 mg of THC. This is a standard dose. If you’re a beginner, consider splitting an edible in half and consuming only 5 mg at a time. 

How Long Do Weed Edibles Take to Kick In?

As we’ve mentioned before, when smoking, THC is inhaled into the lungs and absorbed immediately into your bloodstream. This makes for a much quicker hit. Edibles work differently. 

When you eat a cannabis edible, it has to be digested in the stomach, then metabolized by the liver. At this point, the active compounds are then absorbed into the bloodstream. This is why edibles take quite a while before kicking in.

When they do, however, the high lasts for much longer. You should expect to feel the effects of your weed tea or edibles after about 30 to 45 minutes.

Time To Make Those Edibles!

This article has highlighted how to decarboxylate cannabis, make cannabutter, and how to make tasty weed edibles from home. Now that you know how cooking with cannabis works, you have an entire world of opportunities open to you. The only limit is your imagination! 

Always measure out your portions carefully and accurately. When making cannabis edibles with coconut oil, a little bit of THC goes a long way. 

Do you remember your first weed edible experience? Would you like to see recipes for other tasty treats and snacks? Let us know on Facebook or Instagram!