Humans have been consuming cannabis-infused goodies for centuries. Just look at the long traditions of bhang in India or mahjoun in Morocco. It should come as no surprise, then, that the gradual legalization of weed has led to a spike in creative weed infusions. These days, the sky's the limit thanks to liposomal CBD, water-soluble THC, and advanced extraction methods. But every now and then, it's nice to bring it back to the basics.
If you haven't found a store-bought edible you love or simply want to infuse baked goods with your favorite strain, pot cookies are a great place to start. Here, you'll find pro tips, what you'll need, and a simple semi-homemade recipe.
Tips for making weed cookies
Decarboxylation
Making sure to decarboxylate your flower is the most important step in any weedy baking project — if you're hoping to get high, that is. Whether you use a specialized device or an everyday sheet pan, baking crumbled weed in an oven set to 200°F will convert non-intoxicating THCA into the THC we all know and love so much. Skip this step and your cookies might leave you with some warm, fuzzy feelings, but they're unlikely to produce the full-body high you'd expect from an edible.
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Dosing
The next most important step is to dose your edibles properly. Knowing how strong your cookies will be starts with knowing how strong your flower is, so make sure to check the lab results of your herb. Calculating the precise dose in each cookie will require some math, but air on the side of caution and choose a high-CBD flower for your cannabutter if you're nervous about overdoing it.
Cannabutter
On the topic of cannabutter, there are a few different ways to make it. Whether you go the traditional stovetop method or would prefer to simmer your butter in a slow cooker, there's a route for everyone. To make your own, check out our comprehensive guide to cannabutter.
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Oven temperature
To preserve the cannabinoids in your baked goods, try to keep the oven temperature relatively low. Keep the temperature at or below 350°F if you can and skip recipes that won't work without a high cooking temperature.
Strong flavors
You can add cannabutter to any recipe to make it infused, but to make it taste good, you'll want to pair that weedy butter with some strong flavors. Gingerbread and other heavily spiced cookies can be strong as you like with almost no lingering flavor of weed. Chocolate is another favorite for its strong, earthy flavor that can actually complement herbal notes.
What you'll need
Making weed-infused cookies is as simple as swapping out all or part of the regular butter in a recipe with cannabutter. To make it even easier on yourself, use a boxed cookie mix. At a minimum, you will need:
- 3.5 grams of ground cannabis
- 2 sticks of butter (more if you want to do a mix of regular butter and cannabutter)
- Boxed cookie mix
- Eggs
- Mixing bowl
- Spoon
- Cookie sheet pan
- Small saucepan
- Spatula
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How to make pot cookies
Step 1: Prepare your cannabutter.
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Step 2: Preheat your oven to 350°F.
Step 3: Decide the ratio of cannabutter to regular butter that you would like to use.
Step 4: Following the instructions of your cookie mix, add your dry and wet ingredients to your mixing bowl.
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Step 5: Mix thoroughly to ensure the cannabutter is evenly distributed.
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Step 6: Spoon small balls of the dough onto your baking sheet with at least a couple of inches between each spoonful of dough.
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Step 7: Put the pan in the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes or until your cookies are lightly browned around the edges.
Step 8: Once cooled, consume one cookie and wait two hours before consuming more.
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