Magic Butter
(a.k.a. cannabutter)
Preheat oven to about 230 degrees Fahrenheit. Baking the bud requires the oven to be heated a temperature between 220 and 250 degrees, though the exact temperature is disputed.
The first step involves toasting the bud to activate it, using a fancy word called decarboxylation; though usually it's just called decarbing. To do this, lay out parchment paper on a baking sheet or oven-safe baking pan. Grind up some fresh bud and lay it out on the parchment paper. (The parchment paper is necessary to keep it from sticking to the baking sheet.) Bake the bud for 30 minutes. Personally, I think this sounds like the Maillard effect of browning your food to bring out the flavor.
After baking the bud, reduce the oven temperature to 190 degrees Fahrenheit for the next step.
Next, prepare the butter. Clarified butter works best here, which is butter that's been strained to remove the milk fat. The best quality commercially available clarified butter is ghee, which you can buy at any market that sells food from India and the Middle East. Measure out eight ounces of ghee into an enameled cast iron pot, then add 3/4 of a cup of water.
Most recipes for this special butter say to gently simmer the butter on the stovetop and make sure the temperature stays under 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Since temperature control is important, we're using the oven instead of the stovetop. Just cover the pot with the butter, place it into the oven, and set the temperature to 190 degrees, because science tells us it's impossible to heat an object to a temperature hotter than your heat source. It takes an hour to slowly melt the butter at this temperature, so we're definitely taking our time here.
When the butter is at the correct temperature, add the decarbed bud into the pot of melted butter and mix it in. Place the cover back on, place it into the oven, and let it slow cook at 190 degrees Fahrenheit for a little more than three hours.
And the hardest part is done, and that wasn't very hard. It just took patience to wait this long. Now it's necessary to run the melted butter through a strainer and into a bowl, and press as much of it as possible out of the cooked bud.
Cover the bowl, and place it in the refrigerator for at least two hours. Now we have our magic butter, and we're ready to use it and make something edible.
Magic Brownies
Recipe: Cast Iron Brownies
Without a question, the most popular edibles are brownies. You'd be surprised by the number of people who go out of their way to acquire the finest possible "bud" or "weed," and then mix that weed in with dollar store brownie mix. While there's nothing really wrong with brownie mix from the dollar store, it's certainly a lot better to serve delicious brownies that taste great on their own...as well as providing a buzz.
This recipe calls for 1 cup, or two sticks, of melted butter. When making "magic" brownies, just use 1 stick (4 ounces) of melted butter and 4 ounces of fresh magic butter made using this recipe. And you'll be known as the person who makes the best magic brownies around.
YouTube: Cast Iron Magic Easter Brownies