Effortless Infused Easy Gummies

Marge (00:00:01) - Introducing the Bite Me Cannabis Club. The Bite Me Cannabis Club aims to be an inclusive online space for cannabis lovers. Whether you're simply curious about how cannabis can improve your life or you're fully seasoned, there's always more to learn when you join the Bite Me Cannabis Club, you'll have access to like minded people interested in cannabis, monthly workshops, live Q&A recipes and recipe swaps, digital cookbooks, a fully functional chat feature, and a whole lot more. For a limited time. It's only $5 a month with a 30 day free trial, so you can try it out and see if it's right for you. This isn't just another Facebook group or confusing Discord Channel. I carefully chose a platform that offers a clear, uncluttered and seamless community experience. See for yourself. Join today. Say hello. I can't wait to connect with you there. Join the Bite Me Cannabis Club Today link in your podcast app. In this week's episode, we're doing an infused gummy mix that will take the guesswork out of candy making. Welcome to Bite Me, the show about edibles where I help you take control of your life.

Marge (00:01:19) - I'm your host and certified Gonger Marge and I love helping cooks make safe and effective edibles at home. I'm so glad you're here. And thank you for joining me today. Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of Bite Me. I'm looking forward to this one today as I look forward to all of them because, hey, I get to pick the subject matter. I pick the recipes, so I do what I want, but I think you'll like it too. So I try and pick things I think other people will enjoy. But before we get into it, I just want to say thanks for being here and thank you for listening. Tuning in every week with the recipes and the interviews and all the rest of the crazy shit that I'm doing. I appreciate you, and none of this would be possible if there wasn't somebody on the other end listening to me go on and on about edibles. And as a big edibles consumer and podcast listener, I just want to bring the Best Edibles podcast out to you that I can.

Marge (00:02:08) - And interestingly, it's possible I could be the only edibles podcast. Is that true? If you know of any other edibles podcasts that that focus almost exclusively on cannabis edibles, please share them with me, because I would I would love to talk to them. I know there's lots of great cannabis podcasts out there. I listen to a number of them and I'm learning about more of them all the time. So if you have any favorites of those as well, please let me know. I would love to hear it because like I said, I am a big podcast consumer and there are some great people out there doing some really fun stuff. Before we get into the recipe, the cannabis fact of the week.

Marge (00:02:46) - I can't see the chair. What's going on? But I hit on my.

Marge (00:02:49) - Soundboard, so I have no idea if you can hear it. Maybe I'll find out in my post-production process. I hope you're as excited about that as I am trying to bring the excitement here. And this fact was really interesting.

Marge (00:03:01) - Sometimes I see these fun facts online or cannabis facts. I'm like, Oh, that's, you know, too common knowledge to really share for a group of smart listeners like you. But this one, I was surprised to learn. I'm not sure if I had heard this one before. But here it is. Almost every animal has cannabinoid receptors. And I thought, wow. I mean, intuitively, I guess that makes sense. Since CBD experienced a renaissance in 2018, researchers and pet owners alike have taken a keen interest in how CBD and other cannabinoids may affect pets. CBD pet treats and hemp extracts for pets have made their way into the CBD market, but did these products have the potential to work? Some studies suggest that they do. And I'm reading from article that I found online that I thought this was pretty interesting. The endocannabinoid system or X as it's commonly referred to around and online, if you ever see that that's what it's talking about, is a neuro modulatory system that has been found to regulate a number of functions throughout the body.

Marge (00:04:09) - Phytochemical cannabinoids such as CBD, CBD, interact with these receptors in similar ways to endocannabinoids, which are produced by the body. Researchers have found an endocannabinoid system in nearly all mammals from mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, even invertebrates have an X. The system's presence in so many living beings suggests a major evolutionary benefit. And in addition to helping humans promote everyday wellness, there's evidence to suggest that CBD can help our pets maintain health as well. More research is needed to definitively say what benefit pets may derive from the use of cannabinoids. It's important to note that the THC, the main psychoactive ingredient, should never be given to animals. I remember in high school some friends, I think they gave THC to a pet rabbit or something like that. I can't really remember. I wasn't actually present for this thing and I've always had a real sticking point to getting animals high because I feel like obviously there's no consent there. But this rabbit did not respond well and I think it got pretty sick. It's sort of a fuzzy memory.

Marge (00:05:20) - One of those things like, well, what did you expect would happen, you idiots? So don't give THC to your pets because you're not really sure how they're going to react. I do actually recall another story where I had a friend and I gave her some cannabis cookies that I had made and, you know, enjoy, take them home. And their dog got into the cookies inadvertently. He got really high and they were so worried, they took him to the vet. And the vet, of course, said in the end, like he'll be okay. But they were really concerned about the dog because he was not responding well to the THC. And quite frankly, without knowing sort of more about how THC affects the cause of a small pet, I mean, how do you dose those things properly? But CBD does seem to have some positive benefits. I will actually include a CBD pet dosing chart that I received from somebody quite some time ago. I did an episode about all about CBD and he was able to share this pet dosing chart.

Marge (00:06:18) - So if you do have pets that might benefit from the use of CBD, that might help you sort of decide what kind of dose to give them, because I think it's often dependent on the size of the animal as well. But the interesting thing about this, of course, is that nearly all animals, of course, these wild animals out there could benefit from the use of of cannabinoids. How does that work and for what purpose? In any event, that is something that is something for you to ponder. I hope you enjoyed that fun fact. And maybe you can impress somebody at your next dinner party with some of that knowledge. Now let's get into this week's episode, this week's recipe. This one is Sweets made simple gummy mix, and this was a gummy mix. Full disclosure that was sent to me by Lauren Oils. And they are a company that makes specialty ingredients, flavorings, food colorings, bakery emulsions and all that kind of thing. And they sent me a bundle of items for me to test out because I like to vet the things that I'm recommending on this show.

Marge (00:07:19) - And one of the things they sent me was some gummy mix. And I've tried these before. Zen Zingers makes a gummy mix that is really fun to put together. There are a number of things that I really liked about this gummy mix that they sent me. I love making candies because I love the bite size nature of candies so you can make a few and dose them the way you want. And then if you want a little less, a little more, you can always have more. And of course, that is I've mentioned many times on this show before my built in system for making sure I don't eat too many because my sweet tooth is ever present and this forces me to eat fewer of them because I know that if I eat too many, I'll really fuck myself up and then a good time will not be had. Sometimes gummies and candies can be pretty time consuming to make. There's a lot of steps and sometimes you have to move really quickly and if you get the wrong recipe, you might end up ones that are more like jello and they don't have that gummy texture that you're really looking for.

Marge (00:08:14) - I've done that a few times. I am fairly confident I might have to go back and remake some of them. But all the recipes that you'll find in the recipes page on the website are all gummies that have the appropriate texture, because any time I have made ones that turn out like gel, I'm like, Why didn't I just make fucking jello and infuse that? Like, why am I going to all this extra trouble to make something that is like a fake gummy? Not impressed. I do have to say that if you are looking for recipes online that you want to infuse a lot of these jello like ones do end up being like all natural and healthy recipes that you'll see. And then you make them and you're like, Yeah, it's healthy and recipe, it's healthy and in all natural, but it's like jello. So again, not good. And sometimes let's be honest, if you're making a gummy or a candy, just just go with it. Just own it. It doesn't have to be perfectly healthy all the time.

Marge (00:09:08) - I try and eat healthy most of the time. I try and put good things in my body, but if I'm eating an infused gummy worm, let's just call it what it is. It's a little infused gummy worm. It's full of sugar, you know, sometimes looking for the healthy all natural thing is going to be a disappointment. And this gummy mix, what I really did like about it was a few different things. One, it's a pretty big package, which means it actually ended up making quite a few gummies and I'll get into that in a minute too. It was unflavored and uncolored, so you could sort of add whatever you had on hand or if you had a selection of things on hand, then you could make it your own. You didn't have to do whatever coloring was included in the package. And three, it was pretty simple to make. I did there was a couple, a couple of things about it. So basically you start out there's a when you open up the package, there's a bunch of powder in it and there's another smaller pack and the smaller pack is the gelatin.

Marge (00:10:00) - And you put that in another dish and you add cold water and you let it bloom. And this is pretty common when you're making gummies, you'll see this sort of instruction. Then you add the in a medium saucepan, you add a quarter cup of hot water and the gummy mix and you turn the heat and you start to simmer it on low. But the the amount of water was so small, I must have looked at the package like 3 or 4 times. Being like, This can't be right, this can't be right. And at first it was like a little hard to stir because there was like a lot of powder compared to the amount of water that I put in the pan. But eventually it did work and all the sugar crystals dissolved into the water. And I was like, okay, here we go. But at first it seems really counterintuitive to put in so little water with the amount of powder that you're putting in there, and then you're basically adding those two steps together. You add your gelatin into the into the mix that you had on the stove and then you start putting them into, well, actually you have to add your super strength flavor that I got from Lauren Oils.

Marge (00:11:02) - And a really requires a very small amount. I think it was a half teaspoon for this whole batch and then also a little bit of food coloring. I chose blue. It was like two drops and he ended up with a brilliant blue color. Again, that was enough to do the whole batch. And when I say whole batch I had, they also sent me a tray to gummy molds for gummy gummy worms. And then I as I'm trying to fill these molds, I realized I'm going to I have a lot more liquid here than I'm going to have. I need more molds out. I was like starting to panic a little bit. I got to, like, move fast. I mean, it did say on the package that if it was starting to get a little too sticky to work with, you could put it back on the stove and gently warm it up and then and then go from there. Because I have found before, sometimes it starts to get super sticky. It's almost like it's setting as you're trying to put it in the mold so you don't have to panic like I was, even though I'd read through the instructions ahead of time.

Marge (00:11:55) - But I got out two more molds and then. I had another fifth mold that I was able to fill almost halfway. So this did about four and a half silicone molds. And I will say in the end, the fifth one that I had was like a Star Wars themed tray. And it wasn't I don't think it's silicone. And I will say, folks, if it's not silicone, don't buy it because those silicone trays are so much better. There's so much easier to get things out of there. Heat resistant. You can put them often. I mean, heat resistant. You can put them in the dishwasher, you can put them in the oven. They're not susceptible to cold. So if you want to pop them into the fridge or the freezer for whatever reason, you can do that too. I'm not really sure about these Star Wars ones, but they just don't perform the same way. I don't know what material it was. Maybe it's going to be good for ice cubes, but after using it this time, I think I'll be shelving it for a while.

Marge (00:12:50) - Then you just let them sit at room temperature. And then you let them cure for a little bit after that for a few hours. Now, I did find that when you pop them out of the molds, they were pretty sticky. And I did have the opportunity to talk to someone from the company, Lauren Oils, and I am excited to share that. You can hear that interview on next week's episode. And she gives a few other tips and tricks for making these. But popping them into the fridge makes a big difference and she gives a couple more tips as well. But I just found for myself the first time that I tried these because I have tried them again since that the stickiness for popping them out of the molds and then letting them cure afterwards, putting them in the fridge for a little bit makes a big difference to the final result. And I highly recommend that you do that because I think my house was a little bit too warm. She did mention something about the temperature. I can't remember offhand, but that that would make a difference in the stickiness of of the final result.

Marge (00:13:48) - So that's a really quick tip and one of the many fun things that she shares about it using this gummy mix. Now, as I was pulling the gummies out of the molds, I have to say that the texture was fantastic despite a little bit of the stickiness. But again, that was probably more because it was a little too warm where I was letting them sit. The refrigerator fixed that issue, but these gummies held up like I'm pulling them out of the mold and like stretching the gummies. And they're not. I think one broke, but that was one out of I forgot how many slots are in this on these gummy worm trays, but it was quite a few. So they really held up. And these this is a fun way to make do it yourself gummies and you can easily infuse them. I prefer to use a concentrate because I find that works best with this type of gummy making. Oils I do find often tend to not emulsify the way you want them. And maybe you can remedy that by adding other ingredients.

Marge (00:14:50) - But why complicate it? Make sure you know how strong your concentrate is before you put it in. If you're buying ones from a legal dispensary, it should be properly labeled. Of course, you'll have a pretty good idea, or at least do some calculations, either by using a tech device. If you have one of those or an online calculator like the one over my website. But do try and figure that out so you don't overdose yourself with a with a gummy worm. But the concentrates work very well. So that's the deets. On using the sweets made simple gummy mix. I love the name of that too because it really is pretty simple. Again, like I said at the beginning, sometimes making candies and gummies can be time consuming and fraught with issues, and this really eliminates all of that. I will put in the show notes where you can pick up Lauren oil products, because I do believe in the States you can buy directly online and they also have stores with the Stockists that will carry it in Canada.

Marge (00:15:44) - You cannot buy online. I do know that the bulk barn does carry their products. That's just one of the retailers among among a number. So I'll link to that in the show notes. So if you want to go out and find this yourself, then you can do so and try your own hand at making some simple gummies. So that's it for this week, my friends. I hope you enjoyed that episode and if you did, please share. Sharing is caring and really helps new people discover the show. And of course, I'm running another newsletter giveaway. I think I actually have that listed in the pre-roll or the post roll so you can find out more about that. It is. I am partnering with Lauren Oils for this one as it so happens, but I do suggest you sign up for the newsletter because one of the things I really want to do with this podcast is try and keep the episodes as timeless as possible, and I can share a lot of this information via the newsletter or other things coming up that are a little more time sensitive and that helps keep these podcast episodes cleaner, if you will.

Marge (00:16:41) - At least in my mind, that's one reason to sign up for the for the newsletter so I can keep you up to date on some of the things that have expiry dates on them. I hope you enjoyed that one. Give these gummies a try and again, if you know any podcast you want to share with me, I would be all ears until next week. My friends stay high. Are you tired of trying edibles that are inconsistent and strengthen flavor attempting to figure out your tolerance? Do you want to take control of your edibles experience and find the optimum combination of factors that results in the best outcome? If so, this edibles journal is perfect for you. The Bite Me Edibles Journal provides a convenient and organized way for you to track and record your edibles experience, whether it's homemade edibles or store bought. It includes 48 fillable pages. It sized eight and a half by 11 for plenty of writing space includes information on calculating the potency of homemade edibles, and it was created by an edibles expert. Whether you're a seasoned edibles enthusiast or just starting out on your cannabis journey, the Bite Me Edibles journal is an essential tool for anyone interested in enjoying their edibles to the fullest.

Marge (00:17:48) - Take control of your high life with this convenient and helpful resource. Add it to your. Amazon cart today. Tap the link in the show notes.