Citrus peel, sharp and bright.
Bright and immediately recognizable, and almost entirely gone by the time a cake comes out of the oven. Treat the flower as the base note and build the citrus back on top: zest folded in at the end, a glaze rather than a batter, or a no-bake where nothing gets hot enough to strip it.
In the kitchen
Goes early
These are the lightest compounds in the plant and they leave first. Decarbing costs you most of them before the fat is even involved — the coolest step on the schedule is 200 °F, and that is already well past where they start moving. If this is the aroma you want, it has to come back into the dish from somewhere else: fresh zest, fresh herbs, a spirit, stirred in off the heat.
Pure limonene boils at 176 °C / 349 °F. That figure is the isolated compound at atmospheric pressure, not a threshold in a pan. Dissolved in fat it leaves gradually and the butter holds some of it the whole way — which is why the band above is the number to plan around and this one is only a bearing.
The same compound is in lemon peel, orange peel and juniper — which is the short version of why these pairings work. You are not matching a flavor to the cannabis, you are adding more of something the flower already tastes of.
Cupcakes solve the portioning problem a layer cake creates, and putting the infusion in the cream cheese frosting solves the heat problem — frosting is never cooked, so nothing is lost on the way.
Contains ground ginger, vanilla extract
Written for
5 mgper cupcake
12 cupcakes · 55 min
Peanut butter let down with tamari, lime and warm water until it pours off a spoon. Built cold, kept cold, and measured out a tablespoon at a time over noodles, satay or a rice bowl.
Contains fresh ginger, lime juice
Written for
2.5 mgper tablespoon
16 tablespoons · 10 min
Warm spiced milk with turmeric and black pepper. Made in one pan in five minutes, with nothing hot enough to hurt the infusion.
Contains ground ginger
Written for
5 mgper mug
2 mugs · 8 min
Shortbread base carrying the dose, sharp lemon curd on top. The infusion lives in the crust, which bakes gently, rather than in a custard that sets at a higher temperature.
Contains lemon juice, lemon zest
Written for
5 mgper bar
16 bars · 65 min
Spices simmered in water, milk added after, infused fat whisked in off the heat. Nothing in it ever boils once the dose is in.
Contains fresh ginger
Written for
5 mgper mug
2 mugs · 17 min
Water bath, low oven and a slow cool-down are the three things standing between you and a cracked top. The infusion sits in the graham crust, where it spreads flat and portions with the slice.
Contains lemon juice, vanilla extract
Written for
5 mgper slice
12 slices · 120 min
From StrainTrackr. Each of these breeders named limonene on their own product page — a claim about their cultivar, not a lab result. Most strains have no terpenes published at all, so this is a sample of what is documented rather than a ranking of what is strongest.
The other 24
