How to Make the Best Pot Cakes
We may not yet know who our next president will be, but the 2020 election results made one thing clear: Red state or blue, Americans love weed. Four states – New Jersey, South Dakota, Montana, and Arizona – voted to legalize recreational cannabis in this electoral cycle, bringing the number of states that allow recreational use to 15 states. Why not celebrate this great news with a really good pot brownie?
I bet that a significant proportion of people aged 14-64 will ask, “Is there weed here?” whenever they are served a homemade cake. So common are THC-infused chocolate treats that the fuel for a satisfying comedy is often the first foray into edible cannabis. (This is likely due to the ability of chocolate to hide almost any unpleasant taste.) Overly strong cakes sometimes carry the deep bitterness of raw marijuana, but with the right proportions, you can make a cake that is as delicious as it is disgusting.
Some bakers choose chocolate ganache, while others like cocoa (powder). Both will give you wet and sticky brownies on their own, but the combination makes them attractive and, in a pot or not, they stand out. Brownies are baked like a super-dense cake, and the shape and baking time determine the degree of fudge obtained. A large, wide frying pan will give you a thick chewy result, while smaller portioned pans will bake very quickly and gain height.
We use a slightly more sumptuous version of King Arthur’s flour recipe to make the cakes in the perfect pot. I like this one because it is well tested by professional recipe developers, but forgiving if you want to make the changes we’re going to recommend to make the most of the fallacy factor. Prepare cannabis oil in advance and store it in the freezer, thawing before use. (You can do this during the day; just make sure you have three hours of butter cooking time before you start baking.)
Make cannabis-infused oil
All newbies and newbies to cannabis baking can rejoice that in 2020 you don’t have to dig into the annals of the internet to find a terrifying attempt at rando since 1996 . Legacy recipes lean towards severe coma, which most people really don’t have a good time for. Between gadgets like The Magical Butter Machine and Levo, you can leave (most) guesswork to the gadget and have a uniform product made to your exact specifications.
The best method for small batches of infusions is the classic life hacker: sous vide . Simply cover one stick of butter with one-eighth of the finely chopped and decarboxylated medium and premium buds and heat at 170 ℉ or 160 ℉ for an hour or two. Shorter cooking times yield more early cannabinoids like CBD and THC, and also retain the terpenes that give each strain a unique smell and taste. Longer cooking times provide a more sleepy oil with higher CBN content, known for its sofa blocking effect, and should not be ignored if you suffer from insomnia.
Make cakes
For cakes:
- 1 stick unsalted butter with 3.5 grams of cannabis (see above)
- ¼ cups vegetable fat
- ¾ cup of cocoa powder
- 1 cup cake flour
- 2 cups sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 4 ounces bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ⅛ teaspoon baking soda
- 2 large eggs
- The insides of one vanilla pod
Preheat oven to 350 ℉. If you put butter in a sous vide bag, pour it into a bowl of warm water and let it soften completely before mixing the batter. Baking any brownies, even cannabis brownies, requires a standard wet bowl and dry bowl dough technique, so start by mixing all the dry ingredients. Then, in a second bowl, combine the vanilla and eggs.
Melt the chocolate gently in a steamer or microwave in short portions. Add butter to chocolate until melted. Slowly pour the chocolate mixture into the eggs and stir with a spatula, then add the cannabute. Make sure everything is blended evenly, but not too much aeration.
Combine wet dough with dry ingredients and stir again this thick dough until it is blended. This is where my bff OXO bowl scrapers come in handy: they let you squeeze every last drop of fondant into an oiled and parchment 9×7 pan. Smooth out the mixture and slap it on the counter several times to make sure there is no air left inside.
Bake for 15 minutes, turn pan, then bake for another 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool in a pan for at least 10 minutes. At this point, the cakes will become warm and edible, but keep in mind that their texture will depend on complete cooling, like a chocolate chip cookie . If you can’t wait for them to cool completely, at least use a large, sharp knife to cut the slab to avoid damaging the insides too much. Use paper to remove from the pan and cool on a wire rack.
Serve or not, but keep in mind that each 1-inch square inch will contain approximately 29 milligrams of THC, a potent dose, so serve small portions. You can also substitute half of the oil for a non-psychoactive one and reduce the dosage to 15 milligrams, which is much more reasonable for people who don’t usually smoke. Follow a basic edible protocol not laid out by Maureen Dowd, and try not to consume more than 5 milligrams at a time if you’re new to weeds. Always wait 60 minutes before eating any more, because overeating can worsen the condition for several hours.
These devilishly intense bites are going to be too tasty to resist, so no one will judge you for cooking them without herbs, but if you want to impress someone or just embrace a nostalgic image, this is it. This post was originally published in 2017 and was updated on November 4, 2020 to update links and add updated context related to the 2020 elections.