The only thing better than telling a friend “I’ll bring dessert?” Telling them: “I’ll bring pot brownies.” This edible is a classic for good reason—the intensity of chocolate both camouflages and complements the earthiness of cannabis. In this weed brownie recipe, thanks to Dutch-process cocoa powder, deeply toasted nuts, and a sprinkle of flaky sea salt, you might not taste the marijuana at all. If you bring these to a gathering, announce and label them accordingly so everyone knows what they’re getting into.
Infusing butter with weed, which is the first step of these cannabis brownies, is an art in and of itself. There are several ways to go about it. If you’re new to cooking with weed, I highly recommend reading Mennlay Golokeh Aggrey’s step-by-step guide to cannabutter to familiarize yourself with the nitty-gritty terms. But if you’re revving to get going, everything you need is on this page. Inspired by that explainer, as well as the work of Vanessa Lavorato and my own trials over the years, this cannabutter is built for ease. With a quick infusion—just an hour extracts the vast majority of the cannabinoids while keeping the flavor mellow—you can make the cannabutter and bake the brownies all in one day.
There is a dizzying array of cannabis strains at dispensaries these days. You may be familiar with the terms sativa (often described as “daytime”) and indica (“nighttime”), but these catchalls can only predict so much. How your body processes weed depends on your body. (Did you just eat or work out? Are you seven feet tall?) If you’re near a dispensary, chat with the folks who work there. Tell them you’re planning to use the flower to infuse butter for brownies and what experience you’re hoping for (perhaps a chill Sunday watching Abbott Elementary).
We developed this recipe with a hybrid strain with 19.96% THC—let’s say 20% to keep the math simple. Starting with ½ gram cannabis shakes out to 100 mg THC for the whole pan of brownies. If your strain is not 20%, here are the guidelines for portioning your batch: Multiply 500 mg cannabis by your THC percentage to get the total amount of THC per pan of brownies (so a 15% strain would create a batch containing 75 mg THC). Divide that by the number of pieces and you get the dose per piece. If you want to get technical, all homemade cannabis edibles suffer inevitable THC loss through the steps of decarboxylating, infusing, and baking, but we like to err on the side of overestimating the THC rather than the reverse. Being high is fun—being too high is not.
On that note: Our editors have asked you to buy a kitchen scale many times and maybe you already did and that is great. But if you didn’t—really, seriously—now is the time. If baking is precise, baking with cannabis is more precise. You want to know exactly how much cannabis you are starting with. In this case, a gram is an enormous difference. Unfortunately, most kitchen scales (like the Escali one we use in our test kitchen) are not precise enough for small-batch cannabaking; ½ gram cannabis and 1 gram cannabis can register as the same thing, which they most certainly are not. For accurate dosing, you need a scale that is precise down to tenths of grams—I have this cheap model and it works great.
Likewise, an oven thermometer and instant-read thermometer are invaluable here. The oven thermometer guarantees that when you decarboxylate (step 1), you don’t burn your weed, which would compromise the efficacy of the THC. Many ovens are hotter than their dials or screens imply, and in this recipe, being off by 50° could ruin the whole batch. Likewise, an instant-read thermometer ensures the cannabutter infusion (step 2) stays on track. I know what you’re thinking—that’s a lot of equipment to buy for a batch of brownies. But once you have these tools, you’re all set up to turn homemade edibles into your new hobby (you’ll make so many friends). And they come in handy in loads of other places, like baking cookies or searing steak.
With respect to dosing, if you have one, use a ruler to cut the brownies. Were no weed involved, this would be embarrassingly fussy. But there is weed involved! Carefully cut pieces means reliable dosing. For cannabis with 20% THC, an 8×8″ pan cut into 12 pieces shakes out to about 8⅓ milligrams THC per piece. This is just right for many, but some prefer less, others want more. You do you. For a smaller dose, cut 16 pieces for about 6¼ mg THC per piece. For a larger dose, cut 9 pieces for about 11 mg THC per piece. If this is your first time trying an edible, go small—you can even cut 32 pieces for 3⅛ mg THC per piece. Resist the urge to eat more if you’re not feeling anything. The effects can kick in within 30 minutes but might take 2 hours or more.
If you are allergic to nuts (or just don’t like them), you could swap in ⅔ cup semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips or chunks.
Editor’s note: Many states in the US are 420 friendly, but cannabis is still federally illegal. Availability and laws vary state to state.