I really love pumpkin pie. I remember the first time I tried it. I was in high school and a friend had made one in their culinary class (I was fortunate to go to a school with a strong vocational ed program, which is how I learned how to shoot, edit, light, and mic). They were floored I’d never tried it before (see my blog post about being a picky eater). If it wasn’t for the fear of being labeled a picky eater publicly, I never would have tried it. But there was just the right amount of peer pressure and social anxiety brewing within me that I knew I had to at least take a bite.
And it was then that I realized, desserts don’t necessarily have to have chocolate.
I also started making them whenever it was appropriate. Which, let’s be real, is one month a year.
Until very recently, I’ve always bought premade pie crusts, but with several allergies in my family/social circle, I’ve been working on making them from scratch. It honestly tastes better. And despite my cannabis infused version being a little less than beautiful, as you’ll see in the video, it was kind of perfect tasting. Flaky, buttery, and crisp.
I won’t copy the recipes here, because I used two recipes, pretty much exactly, from Live Well Bake Often to make this pie. My only replacement was swapping in cannabis-infused butter in place of the regular unsalted butter in the pie crust.
You can get the pie dough recipe here.
You can get the pie filling recipe here.
Please note the dough recipe makes 2 crusts, but the filling makes only enough for 1 pie.
To infuse the butter, I will go into some more detail. My goal was to get 100mg/slice, so I used just over 2 grams of kief (kief is the powdery substance that collects in that bottom chamber in your grinder; it has a higher THC potency than the flower on its own). I started by activating the kief using a process called decarboxylation. Preheat your oven to 240 degrees. Spread your cannabis out on a baking sheet. I prefer to line mine, but dealer’s choice. Then bake it for 30 minutes-1 hour.
If you’re thinking that’s a big window, it is. But it also dependent on how much cannabis you’re decarbing and how finely it’s ground up. If you’re putting a half ounce of whole flower in there, you’re looking at closer to an hour. If it’s a couple of grams of kief, you’ll bake for about 30 minutes.
I used 1 stick plus 2 tablespoons of butter to make up for the clarifying and loss of butter being absorbed by the kief. I did clarify it first, which is just removing the foam that forms from the milk solids and water when you melt the butter down.
After clarifying, I added in as much water as there was butter (so about a half a cup), then poured in my kief.
The water helps in two ways, first, it helps to filter the butter and cannabis so that you get a cleaner flavor. Second, it helps maintain the temperature of the butter so it does not get too hot. Water, boiling on a pot on your stove, will probably not break 212 degrees fahrenheit. Which is good because after 240 degrees fahrenheit, you’ll start to break down the THC.
I let this simmer, covered, on my stove for about 2 hours (although you can go longer). Then I strained it all through a cheesecloth lined mesh strainer, and allowed it to chill in my fridge. Once the butter was solid, I was able to slide it out of the container, dump the water, and pat the butter dry.
Drying the butter is very important, especially if you’re not going to use it right away. Water will speed up the decay process and likely lead to mold (and quickly!).
You can watch this water/butter infusion process in full in episode 16.
