Welcome to Psychedelicatessen, a weekly column exploring the world of cannabis cuisine, including recipes from the great chefs and ganjapreneurs who fuel our appetite for adventure.
7/10 is fast replacing 4/20 as the stoniest holiday, with hordes of dabbers toting torches and rigs to local extract parties celebrating the best shatter, wax and budder around. Many of those torches, sold ostensibly for the sole purpose of melting sugar on the top of the French dessert crème brulee, have never been used for their intended purpose — until today. Mark your 7/10 by creating a hash infused crème brulee so decadent that you’ll never forget it!
Alton Brown is the Food TV personality I’d most like to dab with, since his knowledge of culinary chemistry, a la Good Eats, would inform our smoke sessions with clever commentary. This recipe for Dab Brulee is based on Alton’s version of the classic dessert, modified simply by infusing the cream with hash oil in the crock pot for a few hours. This method for infusing cannabinoids into milk fat can also be used to create ice creams and other types of custard, so go crazy!
Using one gram of 70 percent THC butane hash oil will yield about 625 – 700 milligrams of the psychoactive cannabinoid, divided over six ramekins for about 104 – 116 mg of THC per serving.* Based on the type of hash you prefer, you can experiment with dosage by tweaking the THC percentage of your starting ingredient, or using more or less hash. Lightly-processed kif is also a great choice for this recipe, since it will dissolve easily in the cream.
Dab Brulee is classy, elegant, and surprisingly easy to make! Hash and vanilla flavors blend effortlessly to create a dessert that “shatters” when you crack the top, revealing the creamy, smooth filling below.
*Without lab testing your finished dessert, it will not be possible to know the exact dosage or the efficiency of your infusion. Experiment responsibly.
Ingredients:
-1 gram of cannabis extract, kif or hash containing 50 to 70% THC
-1 quart of heavy cream
-I vanilla bean, split and scraped
-1 cup of sugar
-6 large egg yolks
-2 quarts hot water
Equipment:
-6 ramekins or small glass Pyrex bowls
-Propane gas torch
Preparation:
Begin by infusing your cream with the hash oil, wax or budder. Simply pour your cream into a Crock Pot, stir in your hash and heat on low setting for 2 to 4 hours.
Preheat the oven to 325ºF.
Pour your infused cream into a medium saucepan and add the vanilla bean and vanilla pulp. Place over medium-high heat and bring to a boil, being careful not to let the pot over boil. Remove from heat, cover and allow to sit for 15 minutes. Strain out the vanilla bean.
Meanwhile, put a kettle on and heat the water. Combine the egg yolks and half cup of sugar in a medium bowl and whisk until thoroughly combined. Add the infused cream a little bit at a time, whisking between each addition, until the cream is completely combined. Pour the liquid into your ramekins.
Place all the ramekins together in a large Pyrex roasting pan. Pour your hot water carefully into the roasting pan until it comes halfway up the side of the ramekins. Bake until the custard is set but still quivering in the center, about 45 minutes. Remove the ramekins from the roasting pan and chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours and up to 3 days ahead of time.
Before the final “shattering” step, remove the custards from the fridge and allow to come to room temperature, about 30 minutes. Sprinkle a little more than one tablespoon of sugar evenly over the top of each custard. Use your torch to melt the sugar, stopping when brown spots begin to appear.
Keep in mind that the sugar will continue to melt after the torch is turned off. Don’t heat for too long or the sugar will burn. Only torch the desserts you are ready to eat, after the top is browned it will only stay crunchy for a short while before the sugar begins to get moist and mushy. Keep additional custards in the fridge for browning later.
Allow the dessert to rest for five minutes before cracking the sugary layer and digging in!