Edibles are a fantastic way to consume cannabis: they're tasty, smoke-free, and come in a wide array of potencies for stoners of all tolerance levels. But what makes edibles even better is that they're super easy to make at home! It doesn't matter if you're a beginner to baking or the next Masterchef of cooking cannabis-infused treats, delicious homemade edibles are just a recipe away. The only problem is, with so many legit-looking edible recipes available at the touch of a keyboard, it's hard to know the best way to make edibles. Do you make your own cannabutter, buy pre-made concentrates, or just chuck the whole bud into some brownie batter and hope for the best?
No need to stress out about all the different ways to make edibles! Leafbuyer is here to take away the guesswork when it comes to cannabis, specifically the best way to make edibles at home. Just kick back, read up, and get ready to make amazing edibles from your favorite weed strain. So, let's learn the best way to get baked from baking!
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What is an Edible?
Edibles used to be simple: pay a weed dealer and, in return, get a ridiculously potent cannabis-infused brownie. No labels, no directions, and certainly no wide array of mouthwatering choices. Now, with legalization sweeping the nation, edibles have gone from easy to expansive and it's hard to keep up! Regular ol' brownies became baked goods, baked goods became food in general, food turned into gourmet meals, and now you can go into just about any dispensary and get a cannabis-infused soda pop! This weed edible evolution brings a ton of important questions to the forefront of weed-eating culture – the most important question to me being whether or not 'edibles' is even an accurate name at this point. Granted, 'consumables' doesn't have the same ring to it.
Today, edibles are any consumable item infused with cannabis (both food and drink). The standard brownies, cookies, cakes, scones, and other baked goods are still popular today. Cannabis mints, gummies, drinks, and chocolate bars also fly off the dispensary shelves. But for the stoners who are open to making edibles at home, your only limitations are your cooking skills, your budget, and your imagination! From potent pancakes to an entire Danksgiving dinner, almost any meal can be tweaked into an edible. Learning the best way to make edibles at home is easy, especially if you follow one simple rule: whenever a recipe asks for oil, swap some out for cannabis-infused fats instead! Cannabutter, concentrates, and even milk are potential cannabinoid conduits. That said, let's get into some specifics on the best way to make edibles!
Making Edibles with Concentrates
Concentrates are great for adding a cannabis-infused kick to any at-home edible recipe. But what sets concentrates apart from other methods? Well, to start, concentrates usually come with detailed dosage instructions, THC percentages, and even flavor profiles printed somewhere on the packaging. Using cannabis concentrates to add weed to a meal means you'll have much better control over how potent you want the dish to turn out! Knowing the THC percentage also helps you to keep the recipe from being either too weak or, in some unfortunate cases, far too strong. From a couple of drops in a salad dressing to a tablespoon in a Thai coconut and red curry soup, it's much easier to gauge how stoned your edibles will make you feel when using concentrates.
Cannabis concentrates also tend to taste better than other methods of cooking with cannabis. This is especially true of full-spectrum concentrates, specifically made to preserve the natural terpene profile of the plant. Terpenes, for those who don't know, are naturally-occurring plant compounds which are responsible for the aroma and flavor of weed. If you've ever taken a good whiff of a dank nug and thought you detected notes of pine, citrus, diesel, pepper, or even lavender, the terpenes are responsible! To keep these smells/flavors present in concentrates, many cannabis companies are using extraction methods which aim to preserve as many terpenes as possible. This is good news for at-home edible enthusiasts since these concentrates add an extra dimension of flavor to the cannabis cooking experience.
Making Edibles with Flower
Flower is also excellent for producing quality edibles since it allows for much more versatility and selection. Any strain, from ACDC to Zelda Haze, is there for the baking (or cooking). The best way to make edibles with flower is by first infusing your bud into any cooking oil or fat. This can be coconut oil, butter, olive oil, avocado oil, or any variant of these you have on-hand. By starting your at-home edible making experience with flower, you're essentially trading the ease of pre-made concentrates for the versatility and (sometimes) availability of nugs of weed. When making cannabis-infused oil for edibles, be careful and always keep an eye on your soon-to-be cannabis cooking oil. The temperature should be just high enough to activate the psychoactive components of your flower but not so hot as to burn. Burnt cannabutter doesn't taste all that great, and the whole point of at-home edibles should be producing dank and delicious food. Check out this guide to learn the best way to make cannabutter for edibles!
If you're reluctant to try your hand at infusing oil (and can't get your hands on any concentrates), there's another method of making edibles with flower which you may find appealing. So long as eating a little weed bud doesn't bother you, Firecrackers are an excellent and ridiculously simple edible to make. Just preheat the oven, grind down some weed, and gather all the traditional S'more ingredients plus peanut butter. Since peanut butter is filled with fat, the baking process extracts all those psychoactive qualities from the weed so long as the flower and the peanut butter are touching. Just assemble your edible, wrap it in foil, and bake to enjoy the easiest edible on earth. Warning: Firecrackers can be very (very) strong. Unless you're ready for a high so powerful it feels like you're strapped to the front of a rocket ship, take it easy with Firecrackers. I personally learned that lesson the hard way so you don't have to.
Which Way is Better?
If you have access to both concentrates and cannabis flower, you might be struggling to choose which is the best way to make edibles. With concentrates, you get the convenience of it being pre-made, the control of the comprehensive labeling, and the pleasant flavors of refined extraction methods. On the other hand, starting your edible-making process with nugs of flower allows for a wider selection of strains and more oil choices for your final dish. Having the option to choose your cannabis-infused oil might not sound all that important, but sometimes it can make or break a dish. A pie crust, for instance, is best turned into an edible pie crust by using frozen cannabis-infused butter. Frozen concentrates or coconut oil simply won't work as well as butter, at least in the case of pie.
In the end, the only way to know for sure if flower or concentrates make better edibles is to try both out for yourself. After all, everyone has different preferences, resources, and personal experiences which influence their opinions. If you like edibles that taste strongly of weed or have a strong hankering for an unusual strain, cannabutter might be your best bet. But if convenience and control matter more to you than variance, concentrates are the way to go. A million and one things could affect your personal decision of which method is the hands-down best way to make weed edibles. Until you try both enough times to form a definitive preference, rest assured that both are great for packing your snacks with a potent punch! So, have fun, mess around, and just remember to stay safe with your at-home edible experiments. You can always get higher, but time is the only cure for being too high (especially from edibles).
How You Can Make the Best Edibles
Whatever cannabis product you end up using to get weed into your food, there are some basic edible-making tips and tricks to make your edibles the best they can be. First and foremost, practice the recipe you want to infuse with weed at least once before wholeheartedly committing your cannabis. Once the weed is in the pot/bowl/oven, you're not getting it back! Even if the cookies burn or you accidentally used salt instead of sugar, what you made is what you get. By practicing non-infused recipes first, you significantly decrease the chances of wasting weed on a silly kitchen mistake. Secondly, don't judge potency by how weedy your food tastes since some flavors definitely mask cannabis better than others. Base your edible portions on the quantity of weed you put in, the quality, and the THC percentage (if you have access to that information).
Otherwise, just have fun and enjoy the process of combining two things most stoners love: weed and food. Explore recipes online, peruse the shelves of your local dispensary, and remember that the best way to make edibles is whatever way you prefer!
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