Delicious Cannabis Infused Citrus Butter

Margaret 00:00:05 Welcome friends to episode 276. And today we are talking about citrus butter. Welcome to Bite Me, the show about edibles where I help you take control of your high life. I'm your host and Certified Ganjier Margaret and I love helping cooks make safe and effective edibles at home. I'm so glad you're here. Welcome, my dearest friends. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening and for your support. I truly appreciate it. Bite me. The show about edibles is a very independent podcast and I am competing against the big guns, if you will. Because funny thing, podcasting has become pretty popular, and it doesn't really surprise me because I've been listening to podcasts for years, long before I started the show five years ago, and there's a lot I've learned so much from podcasts, so making my own is one way to give back to the podcasting community. And to those of you out there who are edibles lovers just like me. So thank you for being here. Now, before we get into today's topic of citrus butter, we are going to do a stoner trivia question.

Margaret 00:01:18 And today's question is a movie question. After smoking some weed, two stoners try to get to their favorite restaurant while encountering many obstacles along the way. What restaurant were they trying to get to? Was it White Castle, Taco Bell, or McDonald's? And if you guessed White Castle, you would be correct. Now, also, before we get into to today's edible that we're going to be covering, I just wanted to talk about a listener question that I received not too long ago from Wayne in New York. Wayne was asking why you don't see hemp oil being infused very often. Because it stands to reason that you could infuse hemp oil, and you would have all the benefits of that lovely oil. Why don't we see that more often? It would be like hemp on hemp on hemp. And the answer to that question, I think, is there's a few reasons why you don't see hemp oil infused. In fact, I don't know if I've ever seen hemp oil infused. I don't think I have you never hear anybody talking about infusing hemp oil.

Margaret 00:02:38 But I think the reason is, and these are my educated guesses based on my many years of experience with edibles, one factor is that hemp oil has a pretty distinctive taste. Unlike other oils, olive oil has a pretty distinctive taste as well. But you can also infuse oils like, say, avocado or some vegetable other vegetable oils that are pretty neutral tasting, so they're not going to be an overpowering taste in whatever it is that you're using the the infused oil for and hemp oil, if you've ever tried it, has a very distinctive taste. The next reason, I believe, is that hemp oil has a very low smoke point in comparison to other oils, so it just doesn't have the same versatility as an olive oil. A coconut oil, for instance. avocado? Like I already mentioned, MCT. All of those oils are going to have higher smoke points than hemp oil. So I think that's the next reason why you don't see it infused very often. And the third reason is that it tends to go rancid faster.

Margaret 00:03:50 Now I have had hemp oil before. I tend to use hemp seeds more often now when I'm integrating it into my diet and smoothies or or baked treats or whatever the case is. But the when I had hemp oil, because sometimes I would take it just the oil itself, because it's so healthy for you. It had to be kept refrigerated. And as far as the shelf life in comparison to other oils, it's a lot shorter. So I think for those reasons, that is why you don't see hemp oil infused to the same degree as you would say butter, for instance. Like we're going to be talking about today. So one, it has a very distinctive taste to it has a low smoke point and three, it has a shorter shelf life. So for those reasons, I think that is why you don't see infused hemp hemp oil too often. Now there's no reason why you couldn't. You just have to be aware of all those limitations, if you will, of that particular fat. And maybe if you're taking it as a a wellness oil or something, then perhaps it makes it could actually be a nice little boost to infuse it with a ratio of THC to CBD.

Margaret 00:04:59 But otherwise that's what I think. If you have anything to add to that, please let me know. And I'm happy to answer questions like that on the show as well. If you send some to me, if you have your burning questions. But that was a really great question, Wayne, and I appreciate it. We're going to be talking about citrus butter. And the reason I was thinking about I've been thinking about making this recipe for a while because I love citrus, and I also really enjoy butter. I don't tend to infuse butter as an as an infusion as often as I do other fats. So this was an opportunity to make something kind of specific. And I have been wondering, what am I going to use this for? But I love butter, and as a baker, I'm sure I can find delicious ways to use this butter. I'm thinking scones using it on cooked carrots as well I think. Sounds really good. So those are just a couple of ideas. But of course I would love to hear your ideas of how you might use something like a citrus butter.

Margaret 00:06:01 Now, one of the reasons why I was thinking about this as well is because I think a couple of years ago I went to an infused lunch, and it was hosted by Kelly from Kelly's Green Lounge and the Ganja mama. Nadia and Nadia has a special place in my heart because she was the very first person to accept the offer of coming on my show as a guest five years ago. I mean, I was pretty. I was so nervous doing that interview. I had all my questions prepared, if I recall, but it was my first one, so I was super nervous. I need to go back and listen to it, I think, just to see how it sounds compared to some of the interviews I've done more recently, because I'm up to about 60 interviews at this point, and I really love doing interviews. It's one of my favorite things about doing this show, but it kind of boggled my mind at the time that she was willing to take a gamble or take a risk, if you will, of appearing on somebodies podcast that at that time I, I have I had just started really, so I didn't have too many episodes under my belt at that point.

Margaret 00:07:07 And, you know, I continue to be blown away to this day at the willingness of people to say yes to coming on Bite Me, the show about edibles. I mean, let's let's face it, it's a pretty by comparison to some of these other shows out there like, say, lasagna ganja, which is run by, you know, a couple of celebs. I just can't compete with that budget. And with all those things. I have my little corner of the internet over here. People are always so willing to donate their time in this way. Nadia was hosting this lunch. It was incredible. She can cook. It is quite remarkable. I mean, there's no surprise why I had her as my first podcast guest because she was killing it in the edibles game. Never mind the edibles. She can just cook. She's an incredible cook. And she had this huge spread for the people that were at this lunch. I think there was there was probably about a dozen of us at 12 to 15.

Margaret 00:08:00 I do recall that I brought one of my daughters with me, and it was a really fun afternoon, and she prepared this huge spread. But the one thing that I really enjoyed about this particular lunch is that she didn't infuse the food. She infused the butters and some of the sauces that were served sort of separately in little containers. Like if you wanted some butter, you just grabbed a little container of butter and it said on the top, like how much THC was in that particular butter, so you could use some of it or all of it. It was such a great way to do it, because it meant that people could sort of choose your own adventure. And I have been to a dinner before as well with another podcast guest, actually, Travis Peterson, the nomad cook who also puts on incredible meals. But he infuses each course that comes out throughout the dinner. And so you let the chef know at the beginning sort of what your tolerance level is, and they work with that, and that's one way of doing it.

Margaret 00:09:00 But when you're having a lunch like this, when there's so much food and it's and it was served buffet style, you can go up for seconds if you want if you choose, because it's not infused and you're not going to overdose yourself because you know how much you're putting on it yourself. And so it's sort of like more of a choose your own adventure where you're taking control of the adventure by dosing yourself. And most of the people there, I believe, had some were pretty experienced edibles users, so they knew what they were doing. But I just really liked that you could just go up and pick out the butter that you wanted. There was also like an infused caramel sauce for the dessert. And like all these things, she had a few different infusion points available throughout the dinner or through the the lunch. But it also meant and a lot of people did, you could go up and grab seconds if you wanted to. And there was so much food. She was giving us food to take home.

Margaret 00:09:51 It was incredible. So this is sort of what this reminded me of the butter and why I wanted to make it. And I feel like. But this kind of butter would be lovely to have throughout the till the end of the year. I'm recording this in November. I think very soon is going to be the US Thanksgiving, so maybe it's useful for that. And of course the holidays are coming up. So lots of opportunities to use this butter now because I'm a little extra. I actually made my butter from scratch. And I'm not trying to brag, but I really do like to play around with this kind of stuff. The citrus butter recipe that I got was actually from the Vitamix cookbook, because I have a Vitamix, and the cookbook came with it when I bought it. Oh, however long ago that I bought it. But I have made butter before, and I thought I've been experimenting with it again recently, and I thought, you know what, I'm going to try and infuse the butter and then make it this citrus butter.

Margaret 00:10:48 So that's what I did. Now I make the butter in a sous vide immersion circulator style. And that means that the butter is pretty hands off compared to making it in a blender. Like the Vitamix book also had a recipe for how to make your own butter as well, but it seemed like it was a lot more hands on time involved. I'm making cultured butter. I actually have another batch on right now because I would. it keeps and I. It's kind of fun. I'm baked bread so I'm now able to like bake bread and have homemade butter to go with it. I mean, talk about delicious. But the nice thing about using the sous vide is with cultured butter. You take cream and heavy cream. You put it in a clean glass jar. You add yogurt because that's sort of what's going to allow the culture. I don't really know how that stuff works, but that's what you're supposed to do. And then you sous vide it. I think it was at 110 degrees for two days, and then after that you end up with this thick cream really thickens.

Margaret 00:11:54 You put it in the fridge, let it cool. There's a bunch of steps to it, actually, but you put it in the fridge to let it cool and then you put it in your stand mixer. You can do it a different way too, but I just do it in the stand mixer because I have one, and then you start to whip it. I guess this would be where people would be churning the butter. Thank goodness I am not doing this by hand, because I've really no interest in that kind of pioneering type shit, but you put it in the stand mixer. Now, the instructions were that you have to let it. give it ten minutes to mix, because basically what happens is all of a sudden, like, the cream will break and you end up with a bunch of liquid in the bowl of the stand mixer, and then the rest of it's your butter. It takes a lot longer my experience than ten minutes. I think it was probably double that at least. And maybe I should have put it on higher.

Margaret 00:12:46 But then you have a bunch of splashing that can potentially happen. Once it does break, then you end up with buttermilk, which is the liquid. And then of course, you take your hunk of butter that's in there and there's a few extra steps you have to like, press it in cold water to get some of the water out of the butter, because you're trying to get as much water out of it as possible, because that's kind of how it's going to go. Ransome faster if you don't, and then you form it and shape it into your block and then you refrigerate it. So there are a few steps, but most of it's pretty hands off, I would say. And it's just kind of fun to make this time of year. And I like using my sous vide as well, and it's an opportunity to use that. Now, of course you can skip all that stuff. You don't have to do any of that. You can just take your quarter pound of butter. And this recipe calls for a quarter orange, a quarter lemon and a quarter lime.

Margaret 00:13:34 It also calls for six sprigs of fresh parsley, which I did not have and I forgot to buy. So I left it out. But I think it actually would have been very nice. So if you can remember, don't skip that. And you take a quarter of your medium orange and you peel it, you throw it in the blender, you take your quarter lemon seeded, and then you also include a slice of rind for the lemon. And then same with the lime, a quarter lime, and then a slice of the rind as well. If you had your parsley, you'd throw it into the blender too. And then you throw in your butter. Now, because I had just infused the butter before doing this, my butter was liquid. So it does say to add your quarter pound of butter softened. Mine was liquid because I just infused it all although also with some cannabis because. So I made this into a real multi-step process. I made the butter that I infused the butter, and then I made the citrus butter.

Margaret 00:14:26 But that's how it all worked out. And so you just turn on the blender and you mix it. You scrape down the sides a little bit if you need to, and then you mix it until it's all well mixed, and then you take it out. You can roll it in a plastic wrap and you can freeze it until ready to use. That's the nice thing about butter is that you can freeze butter if you don't think you're going to be using it right away. So that's something nice. Sometimes you might also consider I do this for quite a few things actually, is to put it in ice cube trays. I don't know if that would be really messy or not. I haven't tried that with butter, but you could put it in ice cube trays too, because then you would have like a certain amount or an ice cube tray or a mold of some kind, depending on how much butter you want. But that way if you freeze it, you can just pop out one of the pieces of butter, depending on how much you're looking to use.

Margaret 00:15:18 So there's that as well. So that's pretty much it. Like if you're not making your butter from scratch, this actually only takes a couple of minutes. It's really fast and easy. I suggest you try it. And I would love to hear how you use this citrus butter, because I'm going to be experiencing experimenting myself. Now that I've mentioned the word scones, which I hadn't thought of until I started this actual recording, I can't stop thinking about it, and I'm actually kind of hungry right now, so I might have to make some scones soon. The nice thing about, of course, making this buttermilk is you can use or the butter is that you end up with buttermilk, and you can use some of that buttermilk to make your next batch of butter, which I did do. And then you can use the rest of the buttermilk in some other baking. And it also happens that my dad loves buttermilk. So I think he finished it off. There is your citrus butter. How are you going to use it? Let me know.

Margaret 00:16:08 I would love to hear it. Because I think that's it for this week my friends. As always, please share this episode with somebody who you think might enjoy it, get out your phone, text them right now and share this episode. I would really appreciate it, and it does help make this show more discoverable. Word of mouth at the end of the day, is the best way to share and to grow a podcast. Because let's face it, I'm in the cannabis space and most traditional advertising routes don't work for me because I'm in the cannabis space, which seems ridiculous. I live in a country where we are federally legal. Still, it is so heavily stigmatized, and a lot of the services that you end up using around this are based in the States, and they just don't like weed in the States, even though I don't know how many states have now legalized, we just need that federal legalization down there would really change the game for so many people, even myself a small podcaster in Canada.

Margaret 00:17:12 It would really change things. I digress, we all know this. I'm preaching to the converted, I realized that I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'm your host, Margaret. And until next time my friends, stay high.