Cannabis Easter Bread: A Weed Rosca de Pascua (or King Cake) Recipe

A cannabis Rosca de Pascua is a sweet, lemon-scented yeast-bread ring, the one Argentines eat at Easter and Spaniards bake as roscón de reyes for Epiphany, made with cannabutter instead of regular butter. You make an enriched dough with flour, yeast, milk, eggs, sugar and weed butter, shape it into a ring, top it with almonds and candied fruit, and bake it at 180 °C (350 °F) for 20 to 25 minutes. It's a fun, creative spin on a classic holiday treat.

Ingredients for a cannabis Rosca de Pascua:

• 500 g (about 4 cups) all-purpose flour
• 30 g fresh yeast
• 1 glass of milk
• 150 g (about 2/3 cup) butter
• 5 g of cannabis buds or 20 g of resin-coated sugar leaves
• 100 g (1/2 cup) sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• Lemon zest
• Candied fruit (optional)
• Almonds (optional)
• Powdered sugar (optional)
• Whipped cream and chocolate truffle filling (optional)

Step-by-step instructions:

Step 1: Start by making your cannabutter with the butter and weed, following your favorite cannabis butter recipe. Make sure it's ready to go before you start the dough.

Step 2: In a bowl, mix half the milk, 3 heaping tablespoons of flour and the yeast. Stir until you get a stiff dough, then cover the bowl. Let it rest for 30 minutes so it can start fermenting. Add the sugar, the rest of the milk, the eggs, the lemon zest, the salt, the cannabutter and the rest of the flour. Knead for about 10 minutes on a floured surface until you get a smooth ball. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it rise for a couple of hours somewhere warm.

Step 3: Knead the dough again for a few minutes, then stretch it into a ring with a hole in the middle. Preheat the oven to 180 °C (350 °F). Brush the ring with beaten egg and decorate with almonds, powdered sugar and candied fruit to taste.

Step 4: Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown. Let it cool before serving.

Pro tip: Spain's roscón de reyes traditionally hides a dried fava bean and a tiny figurine inside, and whoever finds them gets teased or crowned. To make the hunt more exciting, swap the bean for a small bud and the figurine for another one. Wrap them in aluminum foil and tuck them into different spots in the ring, and give everyone a heads up so nobody bites into one.

Other cannabis recipes for the holiday table

Cannabutter

Making cannabutter might sound like a job for experts, but it really isn't. It's simple and you can do it at home.

The best part about weed butter is that you can use it in a thousand different dishes in your cannabis kitchen.

You'll need 1 pound (about 450 g) of butter, margarine or whatever fat you cook with, and 1/2 ounce (about 14 g) of ground weed. Melt the butter in a pan and add the weed. Let it cook over low heat until the butter turns green from the herb. Strain the mix through a sieve and chill it in the fridge. Now you've got your own weed butter for whatever you want to cook, from sweet to savory recipes. The sky's the limit.

Weed brownies

We've all heard of these legendary treats, and for chocolate and cannabis fans alike they're the base recipe everyone should master.

For the easiest possible version, grab a box of brownie mix from your favorite brand. Obviously, you'll also need weed. For these wild brownies we suggest anywhere from 4 to 18 grams, depending on how strong you want them.

Next, heat the amount of oil the box calls for and add the weed to the pan. Let the weed and oil cook over low to medium heat for about 30 minutes.

Then strain out the plant material and add the oil to the brownie mix. Follow the box instructions from there and you'll end up with a batch of delicious pot brownies.

Cannabis oil

There are tons of recipes out there for making cannabis oil, but here's an easy one that takes almost no work, just a little patience and some good-quality weed.

So how do you make cannabis oil? Here's the step-by-step:

• wash the weed in hot water to clean it, then decarb it (heat it to activate the cannabinoids). Some people say the hot-water wash does both jobs, but the oven is far more reliable for decarbing.
• get a glass jar big enough for the amount of oil you're making.
• pour in your favorite extra virgin olive oil, or whichever you think will pair best with the weed you picked. Remember it can be CBD-rich, THC-rich or both.
• add about 20-25 g of dry, cured, unground weed.
• let it steep somewhere dark and dry for a couple of weeks, stirring now and then so the weed releases its compounds.
• once that time is up, it's ready to use.
• don't take the weed out of the jar.
• if the mix turns out too strong, pour it into a new glass jar and add another quarter of extra virgin olive oil to mellow it out. Shake it hard and let it sit in the dark for a couple of days so it settles.
• your cannabis oil is now ready to use under the tongue, on the skin or as a food supplement.

Cannabis oil benefits:

• Pain relief
  Research suggests it may help with chronic pain, muscle pain and arthritis, and some patients report it works better for them than conventional medications.
• Anxiety
  THC can have a relaxing effect on the nervous system and may help ease anxiety at low doses.
• Nausea and vomiting
  Cannabis has been used for decades for nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy and other medical conditions.
• Epilepsy
  Some studies suggest cannabis may help reduce seizures in patients with epilepsy.
• Glaucoma
  THC and other cannabinoids can temporarily lower eye pressure, which is why cannabis is often discussed for glaucoma.

Cannabis tea

If you want a cannabis treat that doesn't hit like smoking, a weed infusion is a great option for anyone after cannabis's medicinal side.

Many people find a single cup deeply relaxing, for both body and mind. The best part is that this is a great way to use your weed leaves: a tea made with them turns out amazing.

To make this drinkable edible, you'll need 1 g of buds per glass, or 2 g if you're using leaves instead of buds. If you go with leaves, toss in a loose bud or two for a much stronger flavor. You'll also need butter, about a small teaspoon per glass, because cannabinoids don't dissolve in water and need fat to bind to. You can use milk instead of butter, a splash per glass of water, but butter makes it stronger.

How to make cannabis tea, step by step:

1. First, crush the leaves or buds as finely as you can. Once they're fully crushed, add the butter and mix it well with the dry weed. If you're using milk, add it to the pot at the same time as the buds.
2. Once it's well mixed, bring water to a boil, about 1.5 glasses of water for every glass you plan to drink. Don't add the weed until the water is at a full boil, and as soon as you do, turn the heat down to the lowest setting.
3. Stir it over low heat for 30 minutes, until the butter is fully melted and blended with the water. Stir slowly but constantly.
4. When you can't see any butter foam left, it's ready. Pour it through a strainer into your glass.

It's best to drink it right away, before it cools, because as the temperature drops the butterfat separates from the water. If you made it with milk, you can let it sit at room temperature, since milk stays liquid and won't solidify the way butter does.