Since writing about using CBD in baking and cooking previously, I wanted to have a chance to try it out myself. Not only does it give me an excuse to make up some treats for myself, but an opportunity to try out a few different things and pass that information on to others who might enjoy it too.

For the first in this series, I thought I’d start with one of the most basic and popularized cannabis treats out there: brownies. I already have a pretty good recipe, so it became more of a matter of figuring out how I wanted to include CBD. There are several ideas I had: adding it directly, infusing some CBD oil into butter or milk, or adding it to icing. All of these could work, but my main concern was whether or not the CBD would be ‘cooked out’ and become less effective. As noted in the previous cooking post, CBD doesn’t do exceptionally well when cooked. There was also the question of dosage, how much CBD should I put into the mix?

All this is to say, this isn’t going to be your perfect recipe post. Rather, I’ll go through my process, what worked, what didn’t work, and what I think I’ll do for next time. Cooking with CBD isn’t exactly a specific science yet, so hopefully my exploration can help inform your own.

How I Approached the Experiment

To start off with, I decided to try this whole CBD and cooking thing with one of my friends. Which was great in theory, but the problem was that I forgot some of the key ingredients we needed. We still made the brownies and they still tasted amazing, but in the end, we substituted too much honey for too many eggs. Good thing the point was to explore cooking with CBD, not making perfect brownies.

We ended up trying three different things: we split the brownie batter in half so we could experiment around with dose a little bit. One half of the batter got around ½ tbsp of CBD, while the other got about 2 tbsp. Because there was some concern about ‘cooking out’ the CBD when we put the batter in the oven, we also made some CBD chocolate icing to put on top.

It’s worth noting that we were using Lofi’s Full Spectrum CBD oil. Lofi’s CBD was chosen partly because it’s what I had on hand, but it’s also more potent and less expensive than other stuff out there. As I learned through this process, baking with CBD can be expensive and a bit challenging to dose, so I would recommend using something with higher potency for less of the cost, if possible.

Results

Our brownies themselves turned out a little questionable, but I believe this was more because of our inability to actually follow a recipe than the inclusion of CBD. We were missing an egg so we added honey as a substitute, and instead of self-rising flour as the recipe called for, we just used regular flour. Both of these things could account for why the brownies were a little goopier and didn’t rise properly. While I was concerned that the CBD might throw off the balance of baking, I don’t really get the sense that it did. Either way, everything still tasted great, so it was a win regardless.

In terms of flavour and effect, the more potent batch we made was better by far. Using roughly ½ a tbsp for half a tray wasn’t enough – for me, at least. You could maybe taste a smidge of the CBD in there, but not enough for it to have much of an impact. With the more potent batch, however, the CBD was easy to spot. Everyone’s different so you might want to go with a bit more or a bit less, and of course, this also depends on the potency of the product you’re using.

The icing was also really good. We put enough CBD oil in there to be able to taste it, but not enough to overpower it. It was a nice addition to the brownies themselves, and that extra bit of chocolate / CBD goodness tipped the scale from ‘okay’ to ‘pretty freaking good.’ I usually don’t put icing on my brownies – it’s not my favourite thing. But it pairs really well with the CBD and something I’ll definitely do next time I make these.

When it came to flavour, I was actually really surprised. The earthy flavour of the cannabis was definitely noticeable, but I found it worked really well to balance out the sweetness of the chocolate. The addition of the extra honey may have impacted this, but the same could be said about the icing we made. I’m not a huge fan of sweet things, so having that cannabis earthiness grounded the flavour in a way.

Baking Tips and Thoughts

• If you’re really concerned about the extra CBD oil impacting how your brownies bake, you could possibly put in a bit less milk or liquids in order to balance things a bit better. Again, the CBD didn’t seem to change the batter’s consistency, and both the batches cooked the exact same despite the differing amounts of oil. Of course, if you’re doing something else like using CBD infused butter, this is less of a concern.
• When I set out to write this article, I intended on giving specific measurements for the amount of CBD to use, but I find that I just can’t do that anymore. Unfortunately, the best I can recommend in terms of dosage is that it’ll probably come down to a bit of trial and error. Not necessarily a problem if that just means more brownies though.
• I added CBD to a recipe I already had and liked. That may seem kind of simplistic, but I would recommend taking a similar approach. It helped that I already knew what the batter consistency should be and how the brownies should look and taste – that way I was just testing the CBD and not adding extra variables and uncertainties. Since cooking with CBD is a bit of trial and error, it might be a good idea to start this way and, as you learn more, gradually get more complex with it.
• In terms of CBD and bioavailability, we know that we may be able to increase bioavailability when we’re consuming CBD with fatty foods. I think the addition of this icing, with its high butter content, could possibly, help our bodies absorb that CBD. Using other things high in fat, such as creams, may help with this as well. But that’s more personal speculation than hard science.

Recipe

The following recipe is the one I usually use to make brownies (which are delicious every time). I like it because it’s simple enough to make a batch of brownies in under twenty minutes (or less), and therefore simple to adapt to experiment with.

Ingredients

• Half a bag semisweet chocolate chips
• 2 tbsp milk (I use oat)
• 1 stick butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• ½ cup self-rising flour

Instructions

1. Melt the chocolate chips with the 2 tbsp of milkon the stove on low heat.
2. Beat the butter and sugar in a bowl. Blend in the eggs, and then the cocoa powder. Once that’s mixed up, add in that melted chocolate.
3. Stir in the flour. (This is when I put the CBD in). Once everything’s all mixed, pop that batter into a non-stick or greased pan, and bake at 325 degrees for about 25 minutes.

Icing

• For the icing, we mixed icing sugar, a bit of butter, and some milk (I used oat) until it formed the consistency we wanted. Since icing is a bit less precise to make, you can add more sugar or milk until you get the right consistency. Then you can add your chocolate or other flavourings from there. It worked really well with the CBD and was easy to just add it as we mixed.

TL;DR

Although our baking didn’t go entirely according to plan, our brownies still ended up tasting delicious, and our dosage ended up working out. Remember that everyone’s dosage is going to be different, so start with a recipe that you are familiar with so you can focus on dosing the CBD just the way you like.