Ganja Goodies sets the bar

Words Adam Saake – Photos Nicholas Wray

Red velvet cupcakes, homemade candy bars, snicker doodles and chewy caramel candies…sounds delicious right? Well there’s something special baked into each and every one of Jessie Degooyer’s delicious assortment of treats–high-grade cannabis. Degooyer is the owner and founder of Ganja Goodies, a Sacramento baking company that specializes in cannabis treats. Just a year old now, and what started with one solitary item, Degooyer has worked to include over 30 different menu items and she is still expanding. You won’t find Degooyer walking around a Dead concert with a wicker basket full of foil-wrapped brownies. These are gourmet baked goods, individually packaged, that find their way into many of the local dispensaries. There’s been a lot of legwork getting Ganja Goodies to where it is today, but Degooyer wants all her ducks in row. She’s as legit as it gets and she’s made real sure of that.

“I’m a certified food handler and the kitchen that I rent is health and safety approved. So it’s a fully licensed commercial kitchen. I would like to set the bar. I would like to be as 100 percent legit as I can. From the ground up, exactly the right way,” says Degooyer, a retired math teacher-turned-cannabis cook who grew up baking in the kitchen with her mother on Saturday mornings. A lot of the recipes are based on the same recipes she baked as a child, mixed with patient suggestions. Degooyer says she’s very “open to suggestions,” and if patients’ needs aren’t being met, she’s anxious to give it a try. The passion behind the product is all there. Degooyer speaks with enthusiasm when she talks about her menu and how she loves creating something new that will get patients excited. The teacher in her shines through, so much so that it’s easy to imagine a classroom full of high school algebra students gazing and crooning at their new favorite instructor. And as much as she loved teaching, there was a different calling for her.

“Quitting teaching was a huge decision to make,” says Degooyer. “I tried to return to teaching this past fall, after a summer of baking and selling Ganja Goodies. But I didn’t last two weeks. My soul was calling me to bake and provide treats to patients.”

So why cannabis baking, you might ask? Why not a cupcake shop or a bakery? What led Degooyer to cannabis baking was her own necessity for it as a patient.

“I had some health problems and two major abdominal surgeries six months apart. Smoking helped with the pain but the coughing killed my scars and wounds on my tummy. So, edibles were the way to go,” explains Degooyer.

Quality and consistency are very important to Degooyer, all the way from the kind of chocolate she uses to whom she purchases cannabis from. She works with the same three growers, one of which is her husband, to ensure that the cannabis that goes into each item will provide the same dose of medication each time.

“Trying to expand beyond that, from my experience, you don’t always get the quality you’re looking for and I can’t take that risk with the patients,” says Degooyer.

This is very important considering the fact that we are talking about medicine here. You wouldn’t want to a take a pill prescribed by your doctor and not know the dosage of the pill each time. Same thing goes for Degooyer’s Ganja Goodies. They come in three different strengths: 1.5 grams, 3 grams or 4 grams per serving and you can be sure that you’ll get the same result each time.

It’s truly amazing how delicious the Ganja Goodies are, considering that taste is a huge issue when it comes to baking with cannabis. For starters, cannabis has a strong flavor that is recognizable in the final product and could, if used incorrectly, screw with a lot of the other flavors. Cooking that is done with hash oil often produces this result, so Degooyer opted to only use butter that has gone through a multiple-step, ice extraction process that purifies the butter and cuts down on the “pot” aftertaste.

“I’m really proud of these recipes. I love that it’s consistent, that it’s potent and that it’s delicious. I don’t sacrifice taste for potency. I’m reaching a point now where I’m making butter constantly. I have people who make butter for me, and we are just blowing through it,” says Degooyer.

That means business is good. Just recently, Degooyer expanded to an even larger kitchen than where she was before and she and her team outgrew it in less than two weeks. Now, Degooyer is expanding again and on the lookout for a kitchen that can handle a growing baking business. Besides all the cookies and caramels, there are plans in the works to create a spaghetti sauce as well. In fact, Degooyer hosts cannabis cooking classes where she discusses why eating cannabis is safe and effective and teaches the proper measuring of butter for each recipe. But what she gets the most excited about is something that she calls a “Better Than a Snickers Bar.” It’s a decadent candy bar made with milk chocolate and layered with chewy nougat that’s mixed with peanuts.

“One of my immediate goals is to expand upon an entire line of candy bars. The Butterfinger and then the Almond Joy,” says Degooyer.

No matter what it is you are looking for in life, there often tends to be an upper echelon that soars above the rest. Maybe even reinvent the way that you think about it in the first place. Gourmet corn dogs, diamond-encrusted iPods, a bottle of Chateau Haut-Brion red wine; you name it and somebody has put a lot of time in to making one better and more extravagant than it started out. Ganja Goodies has adopted this philosophy by taking something like ganja food and creating a product that transcends stereotypes and excites the taste buds, all while serving a medicinal purpose. Next time you’re at the dispensary, keep your eyes peeled for Ganja Goodies.

Ganja Goodies can be found at the following local dispensaries: The Green Temple, El Camino Wellness, One Solution, The Reserve, Another Choice and Unity Non-Profit. For more info, go to Ganjagoodiescafe.com.

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