These cannabis-infused confections combine the delicious flavor of caramel and the warming blend of pumpkin pie spice into a chewy autumnal treat! To make these pumpkin spiced caramels, you’ll only need a couple of special kitchen items — a thermometer and a kitchen scale — but no expensive molds or complicated kitchen appliances.
You’ll need the following ingredients:
- 500 grams of Powdered Sugar
- 160 grams of room temperature butter — either fully or partially cannabis-infused butter, depending on how strong you want your finished caramels to be. (See note below on making your own cannabutter!)
- 140 grams Heavy Whipping Cream
- ½ teaspoon (or 2g) of vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon Pumpkin Spice
- 2 grams sea salt
Making your own cannabutter is easy, especially when you’re using pre-decarbed cannabis like Ace Weidman’s Cooking Ounce! Simply heat up your butter (or any fatty oil, like coconut oil or olive oil) in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Once the butter is melted, slowly add the decarbed cannabis and cook for about 20 minutes, stirring regularly. Remove the pan from heat, let it sit undisturbed for 10 minutes, then strain the butter into a large bowl through a fine mesh sieve, coffee filter, or cheese cloth. Press down on the mixture to extract as much butter as possible, and then you’re ready to use your cannabutter to make edibles!
For these pumpkin spiced caramels, your butter needs to be at room temperature. So, make sure your cannabutter is cooled off before you use it — or, if you’ve made your cannabutter in advance, take it out of the fridge before you start cooking so it warms up. Once you’ve measured out 160 g of butter and it’s at room temperature, sprinkle the sea salt on top and set it aside.
1. Along with getting your cannabutter prepared, let’s get everything else ready! Get out all your ingredients, and line an 8 x 8 baking pan with parchment paper. Lightly grease the parchment paper with cooking spray, or using melted regular butter on a paper towel.
2. Combine your heavy cream, vanilla extract, and pumpkin spice in a microwave safe cup or bowl. Heat for one and a half minutes, stir, and then heat on 20 second intervals until it gets around 150°F. The goal is to infuse the flavors and bring the cream up, so it doesn’t foam and steam excessively when added to the caramel.
3. Put a thick-bottomed medium sized saucepan on medium heat and allow it to warm up a bit. Add a third of the powdered sugar to the pan, stirring gently but thoroughly. We recommend using a sturdy silicone spatula, which does a great job of giving the pan bottom a good scrape and preventing the sugar from burning. After the sugar has become almost fully liquified, gently stir in another third of powdered sugar and repeat. Using a cooking, candy, or infrared thermometer, monitor the temperature and continue stirring until the temperature reaches 350°F (no big deal if it goes a little over).
4. Remove the hot caramel from the heat and slowly drizzle the heated, seasoned heavy cream into the saucepan, stirring gently and thoroughly. Continue stirring until the cream is fully incorporated — stirring also allows for excess moisture to evaporate, so take your time. Once it’s incorporated, bring the saucepan to a medium-high heat and continue stirring until the caramel comes back up to 250°F.
5. Turn off the heat and add your salt-sprinkled cannabutter. Stir gently and thoroughly until the butter is thoroughly combined — like before, this stirring allows the water content of the butter to evaporate, so take your time. If the butter is being stubborn, you can turn the heat on its lowest setting and continue stirring to ensure it’s all combined.
6. Carefully pour the caramel from the saucepan into the parchment lined pan. Now, just let your caramel cool for a couple of hours or more until it reaches room temp. We recommend setting your pan on an oven mitt or a baking cooling rack to prevent the heat of the caramel from damaging your countertop. Using a cooling rack will also speed up the cooling process.
7. As the caramel is cooling down, figure out how many milligrams of THC is in your finished caramel. This allows you to have a good idea of the THC content in each serving, so you can properly portion them out. You’ll have to crunch some numbers in order to do this:
- First, take the total THCa of your cannabis — let’s say 12% THC, which is the case if you’re using Ace Weidman’s Cooking Ounce.
- Next, multiply that number by 10 to get milligrams THCa per gram — in this case, 120 mg THCa.
- Then, convert THCa to THC-delta-9 using the conversion rate of 0.877 — in this example, that’s 120 mg x 0.877 for 105.25 mg THC-delta-9 per gram of cannabis.
- Now, divide the amount of THC-delta-9 per gram of cannabis by how many servings you’re making. Your final answer depends on how much infused butter you used in your recipe. If all 160 grams of butter in this recipe were infused with two grams of Ace Weidman’s cooking ounce, you would divide 210.5 mg cannabis (105.25 x 2) by 50 caramel pieces (about how many servings this recipe yields) resulting in each individual caramel having 4.21 mg cannabis. You can cut the infused butter with non-infused butter in this recipe to reduce the amount of THC.
8. Now it’s time to cut the caramel! Using a lightly greased or buttered knife, trim off the funky edges to square it off (these trimmings, of course, can be the chef’s reward!) then cut the block in half. Then, cut the halves into thirds and repeat in the other direction. This helps you get pieces of caramel that are roughly the same size, about a square inch.
After you’ve cut the caramels, you must individually wrap them in order to prevent them from sticking to each other. This also makes them easy to share! Cut sheets of parchment or wax paper into roughly three-inch or four-inch squares, and use them to wrap the little caramel bites. Store your wrapped canna-caramels in an airtight jar or container in a cool place, where they will keep for several months — that is, if they aren’t devoured first!
This recipe was contributed by Rory Reiss, a chocolatier and kitchen technician here at Rev. When he’s not applying his creativity to our i am edible chocolate products, Rory experiments with a variety of cannabis-infused confections at home. With a background in culinary adventures — including nearly a decade of raw vegan chef work and writing — Rory makes everything from various herbal salves and tinctures to home-brewed fermented goodies. Rory enjoys sharing his creations and recipes via Instagram @rory_reiss, so check out his page for more recipes and inspiration for homemade edibles!
