Adding lecithin to your recipe will take your edibles to the next level and make you stand out against your competitors. Lecithin is a yellow-brownish fat essential occurring in the cells of both plant and animal. Lecithin can be found in sources such as soybean, sunflower seeds, canola, egg yolks, and cottonseeds.
Lecithin has multiple functions like homogenizing liquid mixtures, emulsification, drug manufacturing, and food processing. Currently, the use of lecithin is common in countless including food and beverages, the beauty market, and the marijuana edibles market. Lecithin is amphiphilic, meaning it’s both oil and water-soluble. Its amphiphilic character makes it useful in edible making as it allows the bind of the ingredients without crumbling and prolonging the shelf life of the edibles.
It would be best if you considered including lecithin as a key ingredient in your cannabis kitchen. Incorporating lecithin will help to infuse your cannabutter and the water-based ingredients together. In addition, lecithin is good for binding when baking with cannabinoids.
Why You Should Add Lecithin to Your Edibles?
Without adding lecithin, your edibles run the risk of crumbling when touched. A mixture of sugar, cocoa, and flour to make cookies or cakes is sometimes runny running the risk of crumbling. If you are looking to make some money and get high, you know when the end product is all over the place, the results are awful. Lecithin helps with the binding of the cannabinoids to the fats and oils in your butter during the infusion process.
You are probably wondering why you should use lecithin in your cannabis edibles. Well, there are two main reasons why,
- Lecithin acts as an emulsifier and a stabilizer allowing for the combination of both oil and water, making perfect recipes for cannabis gummies, cookies, cakes, and brownies.
- Lecithin plays a part in increasing the bioavailability of THC in the body by increasing the potency of the infusion.
Lecithin as an emulsifier plays an important role in allowing the binding of opposing ingredients like oil and water. Naturally, oil and water don’t mix as the water layer settles at the bottom and the oil layer tends to stay afloat. Adding lecithin will allow the binding of the ingredients, forming and uniform layer that is inseparable.
Lecithin increases the bioavailability of cannabinoids because it is a phospholipid. Phospholipids help in cell absorption, and lecithin in edibles makes the THC absorption stronger and lasts longer. Lecithin is also a surfactant, surfactants are compounds that can lower surface tension, and this property helps in the distribution of THC more effectively.
How to Add Lecithin to Recipes?
By now, you are bought to the idea of adding lecithin to your edibles, and the remaining question is how you should do it and how much lecithin to use in your edibles? Incorporating lecithin as an ingredient in your baking is easy and straightforward.
Lecithin as a dough conditioner, add a teaspoon in every cup of flour for the recipe. Mix the liquid and dry ingredients into a uniform infusion and get baking. Follow the baking procedure and directions till the process is complete. Sample your edibles and if the texture is not as anticipated, add some more lecithin in your next batch. If the taste of lecithin dominates the edibles, then reduce the amount in the next batch.
Baking edibles following the vegan option is slightly different. In a typical recipe, mix one and a half teaspoon of lecithin with two teaspoons of water for each egg yolk needed in the recipe. Add the flavor and other binding ingredients and bake. Taste the edibles and decide whether you need to reduce or add lecithin to the next batch, depending on the current outcome.
Not all cannabis edible recipes require a specific amount of lecithin. In such cases, use the rule of thumb where you add a teaspoon of lecithin to a cup of liquid. A common mistake you can make is adding lecithin to the cannabutter, which can be a disaster as the temperature of the butter can fluctuate, requiring you to add water.
If you add water to regulate the temperature of the cannabutter to prevent it from denaturing the cannabinoids, avoid adding lecithin to the infusion. As lecithin will bind the water and butter together, creating a mess and your end products will be undesirable.
Your baking process may involve adding lecithin to the butter, then take your time and ensure the water and butter are completely separated. This way, the outcome of your end product will be as intended.
The Best Source of Lecithin for Edibles
Eggs are probably the finest source of lecithin for use in edible dishes; nevertheless, they will not suffice in vegan recipes because of their high cholesterol content. Soy lecithin is a ubiquitous ingredient in many processed meals, but there is a great deal of dispute regarding how nutritious it is in general.
Soy lecithin is well-known for being extensively processed, with producers often using solvents to remove it from soybeans. As a result, sunflower lecithin is recommended as an alternative. While the egg and sunflower-based lecithin are better, they are also more difficult to come by—with soy being the most common in powder form.
Sunflower Lecithin in Edibles
Sunflower lecithin is extracted without the use of solvents, making it the most natural form of lecithin in comparison to soy lecithin powder. Using the sunflower lecithin powder has a couple of benefits.
Due to its emulsifying property, sunflower lecithin powder is used to bind the oil-based cannabutter to the water-based ingredients making a well-infused mixture. The mixture will help you bake edible cookies, brownies, and cakes that will not crumble.
Sunflower lecithin powder helps extend the shelf life of your edibles. The lecithin is amphiphilic hence inhibiting segregation of water and oil in the infusion. This property prevents the likelihood of mildew or mold formation of your baked goods.
Lecithin is a phospholipid that helps it increase the potency and effects of the ingested cannabinoids. By increasing the bioavailability of THC to the body, your body can absorb it better and have a lasting effect.
People are less allergic to the sunflower lecithin powder making it the ideal choice when baking edibles. Sunflower is mostly grown organically without genetic modifications makes sunflower lecithin acceptable to most people.
Soy Lecithin in Edibles
Soy lecithin powder is extracted from soybean oil using chemical solvents. The main concern with using soy lecithin powder is that most people tend to have an allergic reaction hence not a good choice for making your edibles. Most of the soybeans are genetically modified, which lowers their popularity.
Lecithin is available in both powder and liquid form in the market. The liquid form of lecithin has low-fat content, while the powder form has a slightly higher fat content. Whichever you decide to bake with is entirely up to you as the results are more or less the same. The powder form is easier to clean up in case of a mess while baking than the liquid form.
You are probably wondering where you can get the lecithin from, and the best suppliers of lecithin for commercial and industrial purposes are non-other than National Lecithin. For more than 45 years, we have been entrusted to supply lecithin by different businesses. Our product is fresh, consistent, and of excellent quality. The lecithin products we produce are Kosher, Halal and Food Chain Certified and meet Global Standards for Food Safety. Contact us today at (973) 940-8920, or fill out our online form and make your order!