Cannabis birthday cake tops this deliciously infused food celebration. You’ve been waiting for a birthday like this one!
As you’ve progressed to adulthood, birthday parties likely evolved from the relatives chatting around the snack table to ten friends chasing each other around the house in a sugar-fueled frenzy. Then onto sleep overs and touch football or ‘spin the bottle.’ Now a days you may have conveniently forgotten the number when that special day rolls around. And you’d feel happy with a just night off dishes or someone to take you to lunch. How did your standards get so low, my friend? You deserve the fully monty, hooha, celebration of yesteryear. And with legalization rolling out across the country, we’ve got the perfect way to restore a joyous shine to your special day: cannabis birthday cake!
This party is going to inspire your friends to buy a desktop calendar just so they can circle off your birthday for next year. Better than pirate chest piñatas. More fun than pin-the-tail on Uncle Perv. A gently medicated dinner topped off by a cannabis birthday cake will send everyone off in a glow of health and happiness.
Remember Dosing So You Don’t Knock Your Guests Out
When infusing food for your birthday (for adults only), it’s important to remember how much cannabis you’re placing in the food. After all, THC can become more potent after it’s metabolized. For the sake of a party where guests will likely also smoke or vape, keep ingested cannabis to a very low dose. And be sure to offer plenty of non-infused snack options. We’re recommending no more than 10mg of THC throughout the entire meal. The goal should be that everyone enjoys the night and makes it through to cake and post-meal festivities.
If you have medical cannabis patients coming for the party, you can speak to them ahead of time to see if they would like you to increase the cannabinoid content. An easy way to make this happen is to sprinkle some kief on their portion prior to cooking. You can keep track by inserting toothpicks or cut pieces of bamboo skewers to identify the enhanced pieces.
How to Calculate Dosing for Edibles
The potency of an edible is always expressed in milligrams (mg). So, if you buy a chocolate bar that is 50mg THC, for example, then break that into ten pieces, each one will be a 5mg dose.
When making edibles at home, you are most likely starting with bud that has a variety of CBD:THC ratios. It’s important that you know the percentage THC because only from there can you calculate dosing.
For every 1g of bud there is 1000 mg of dry weight. If the strain is 10% THC then that’s 100mg THC in that 1g. By the same calculation, 3g of bud would be 300mg THC. You get the idea. If you plan for each person to have 5mg dose in their piece of lasagna, that would be 60 pieces cut into that lasagna!
So, let’s look at it another way. Go back to the cannabis butter: 1/4 ounce to make 1 cup butter. That’s 7g of cannabis. Let’s say it’s a 10% THC strain, then that 1 cup of butter will have approximately 700mg of THC. If you want each guest to get 5mg dose and the pan will cut into 10 pieces of lasagna, you need 50mg overall. That is the equivalent of 1.5tbsp of cannabis butter.
You can do that math manually as above. Alternatively, you can also use a handy online calculator like this one.
The Main Show: Weed-Infused Lasagna
Developed by the edibles experts at CannaDish, this beast is a crowdpleaser. Pro tip: when you make the cannabis butter, add some oregano and basil to make it Italiano!
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup butter (1.5tbsp Cannabis butter and 2.5 regular)
- 1/2 cup flour
- 2 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 bell pepper chopped
- 2 tsp garlic paste
- 1 tsp palt
- 1/3 cup tomato paste
- Salt
- Pepper
- 1 leek chopped
- 2 cups peeled canned tomatoes
- 1 tbsp fresh thyme
- 1 tbsp oregano
- Lasagna sheets
- One large tub of Ricotta cheese
Directions
Bechamel Sauce
- Place cannabis/butter on low heat and add flour.
- Mix together till you get a roux mixture.
- Cook and mix for 2 min.
Now add your milk and whisk till you get a nice sauce consistency. - Season with salt and pepper and set aside.
Meaty Deliciousness
- In a medium pan, cook ground beef together with leek, bell pepper, garlic paste for 3 min.
- Add tomato paste, canned tomatoes, and all spices.
Cook for 20 min
Assembly
- Layer the bottom of a lasagna tray with oven-ready lasagna noodles. Then layer a third of the meat sauce, follow by 1/3 of the bechamel sauce, 1/3 of the Ricotta, 1 layer of cheese. Begin the next layer with lasagna noodle sheets.
Continue this 3 times till you have 3 layers. The final layer will be topped with sauce and cheese slices. - Bake in the oven for 80 minutes on 220F. The low temperature is important so that you don’t burn off important terpenes and destroy cannabinoids.
Vegetarian friends will appreciate you swapping out the beef for some vegetables. Try layering grilled eggplant with zucchini, spinach and mushroom instead. All of the other steps would be exactly the same.
This lasagna is not a vegan-friendly choice, but you can modify using vegetables and cashew cheez instead of ricotta. I personally have not found a sliced vegan cheese that melts into that gooey goodness we’re looking for here. I would offer my vegan friends another cannabis-infused option.
If you have cannabis-experienced guests, you can offer an additional infused option with the companion salad. Infused vinaigarette gives you freedom to create flavor combinations that will be the perfect compliment to your meal.
The Show Stopper: Cannabis Birthday Cake
Delicious cake is the staple of any memorable birthday party and this one is going to be talked about all year. Trust me.
Ingredients
1/2 cup cannabis butter
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
6 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups powdered sugar
8 ounces cream cheese
Food coloring(optional)
Jam (optional)
Directions For Cake
- In a large bowl, blend 6 eggs with 1 cup sugar and vanilla extract. Cream together until you get a nice white creamy mixture.
- Fold in 1 cup flour and baking powder (mixed together ahead of time).
- Pour into a cake pan and bake for 50min on 220F. Again, low temperature is important to maintain the integrity of al of those healthy terpenes, flavonoids, and cannabinoids.
Directions for Rich Cream Icing
- In a medium bowl cream together 1 cup butter with 1/2 cup cannabis butter.
- Add powdered sugar, cream cheese and food coloring(optional)
- Once cake is done, cool down and start glazing the cake with the cream mixture.
- Decorate as you like and put in some candles.
We would suggest using fake candles on this one so you don’t get wax mixed into those good buds. Enjoy!
And, hey, Happy Birthday!!
Karla White
I don’t get the math. (For the lasagna example) If theres 700mg of THC in 1 cup of butter and you use 1/4 cup in the recipe, 700/4=175. So the lasagna will have 175mg of THC whole. Cut into ten pieces, 175/10=17.5, there would be 17.5mg per piece not 5.
Jennifer Grant
It’s working from the other end of things. If you want each guest to have 5mg in their serving and there will be 10 servings per pan then you need 50mg overall. How to get 50mg from 700mg cup? The whole thing (700mg/1 cup) is equivalent to 16 tbsp so if you only want 50mg it’s 1/14th which is basically 1.5tbsp. 1/8cup = 2tbsp = 87.5mg and 1/16th of a cup = 1tbsp = 43.75mg. It’s roughly between the two at 1/14th of a cup (1.e. about 1.5tbsp).
Jorge
Hey great comment, lovely recipe. Much love Jorge ❤️!