My love for baking arrived about the same time I first put a joint to my lips. It was only a matter of time spent perfecting both the art of pastry crafting and smoke blowing before I figured out a way to unite the two.

Cannabutter is an ideal way to work weed into your baked goods, whether that’s the usual brownie and cookie, or something more advanced like cake and ice cream.  Trust me, the recipes exist. And it doesn’t have to stop at baking. Spicy cannabutter mac and cheese and savory salads topped with browned cannabutter vinaigrettes are examples of incorporating weed butter into an actual meal.

Making cannabutter, however, requires a bit of commitment. Cooking time can creep upward of three hours, so don’t try making this between classes on a Tuesday. The process also requires you to decarboxylate your weed. Despite the name, this involves no organic chemistry whatsoever, just hotboxing your oven. All you have to do is place your cannabis buds on a cookie tray in the oven and let the heat from baking turn the non-intoxicating cannabinoid THCA into the good stuff, THC.

Some recipes also use a pound of unsalted butter, which seems a little like overkill to me, but there are other options that require about a half cup. And if cow excretions aren’t your thing, coconut cannabutter is a potentially healthier, vegan substitute.

The following recipe has been adapted from a variety of cannabutter recipes. To make a bigger batch, just stick to the ratios and you should be fine.

Ingredients

1.     1 cup ground cannabis
2.     1 cup water
3.     1 cup unsalted butter

Tools

1.     Cheesecloth or strainer
2.     Jar

Directions

Decarboxylate that weed. Place your cannabis buds on a cookie tray in an oven set to 245 degrees F. Let the oven work its magic for about 30-40 minutes and try to remember to gently mix the buds on the tray every 10 minutes so every surface is getting an even bake.

Post-decarboxylation, coarsely grind up the buds. Massive chunks of weed bud in your butter are going to make it both gross and incapable of getting you high.

On the stovetop, add your water and butter to a saucepan and simmer it on low until the butter has melted.

As melting begins, scrape in the ground-up weed and then let the mixture simmer on low heat for 2-3 hours. This is the point where you start thinking about how much easier it would have been to just smoke and satiate the munchies with a normal brownie, but hang in there. Stir that butter and cannabis concoction every once in a while and never let it come to a boil.

Strain the butter. Place the cheesecloth or mesh strainer — really anything that is going to let you separate the butter from the coarse bits of weed — over a jar and pour the melted butter over the cheesecloth.

What should be left is a jar full of warm, melted butter and a cheesecloth full of butter-saturated weed. Refrigerate the jar of butter. And you don’t have to throw away those weed remains! Some people just rewrap it in a new cheesecloth and add it to hot water or milk for some weed tea.

Now don’t go replacing the entirety of the butter in any recipe with your cannabutter. To test the potency of what you just created, you can spread about half a teaspoon on a snack, like a cracker. Then adjust this measurement to get the results you want. Recipes for baked goods and meals will also include a recommended amount of cannabutter.

Happy baking, my dudes!