Christmas Ham Recipe - The Cookie Rookie® (2024)

FAQs

What does spiral sliced mean? ›

What Is a Spiral Ham? A spiral ham is, in a nutshell, a bone-in ham that's been sliced with a special spiral-slicing machine, which carves the meat into perfectly thin slices while allowing it to retain its show-stopping centerpiece shape for optimal presentation.

Remove packaging and if your ham has a small plastic disk on the underside of the bone, remove and discard the disk. Place the ham in a shallow roasting pan, cut side down. Cover with foil*. Bake the covered ham for 12-15 minutes per pound or until the ham reaches 140°F*.

Whether you heat your spiral ham in the slow cooker or oven, all you have to do is open the glaze packet and apply it 30 minutes before your ham is finished cooking. By the time it's ready to serve, you'll have a satiny-glazed ham without any of the time or effort it takes to make a ham glaze.

Slice the ham.

Each score should be about 1/3" deep. The scores should extend all the way from top to bottom on each side of the ham. Leave about one inch between cuts. You may score the ham while it is raw, right before you cook, or you may score it at the end of the baking time – just before you add the glaze.

We recommend our signature bone-in Honey Baked Ham for life's special occasions and our boneless ham for more casual gatherings. Our Bone-In Honey Baked Hams are cooked longer in a smokehouse with a hardwood blend for up to 24 hours, yielding natural smoke flavor from real hickory and maple chips.

Scoring also creates extra texture on the exterior of your ham, which equals more surface area for the tasty glaze to coat. You can skip this step with spiral-cut hams.

Shank: This portion comes from the lower half of the leg and is the most common cut used for baked ham. Butt: Also known as ham sirloin, this section comes from the upper region of the leg and is the most tender and flavorful cut of ham.

The first step to heating your spiral ham is to choose your cooking method. While the oven is the most traditional (and most popular) method, you can also heat your ham in a slow cooker. No matter which method you choose, remember to remove your ham from the refrigerator about one hour before cooking.

Baked Ham Best Practices

Cook fat-side up in a roasting pan filled with about 1/2 inch of water covered tightly in foil for the bulk of the time. During the last 30 minutes, remove the foil, crank the heat up to 425ºF, brush with a simple glaze at least twice. Let rest 20 minutes before carving.

When to glaze a ham? ›

The glaze should not be applied until the final hour to 30 minutes, in order to avoid burning the sugars. What you're going to do with the glaze ingredients is just combine most of them into a paste, and then apply it to the ham. After that, the heat in your oven will take care of everything.

After the ham has cooked for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, brush the surface with some of the glaze. Then pop it back into the oven, uncovered, for another 20 minutes or so. Pull it out and brush on more glaze, then pop it back in the oven. Then pull it out and brush on more glaze!

Peach preserves, hot pepper jelly, and maple syrup work as sweet bases for glazes that add sheen as well as distinct flavor. Tasty additions such as aromatics, herbs, and spices switch up a traditional ham and make it truly memorable.

Glazing: Empty contents of the glaze packet into a small saucepan. Add 22 mL (1 1/2 tbsp) warm water. Heat glaze mixture on high, stirring constantly, until glaze begins to boil. Remove immediately from heat.

This makes for an attractive presentation, and it will allow the glaze to penetrate the meat. Score the surface of the ham in a diamond pattern with a shape knife. For extra flavor, insert a whole clove into each cut intersection or in the centers of the diamonds.

QUALITY • Quality in hams is determined mostly by firmness and color of lean in the butt face. Hams that are pale, soft, and exudative (PSE) are very pale in color, soft, and watery, and should be placed last in the class. The lean of hams with PSE sags and has a “mushy” or “soggy” appearance.

Run a knife under the rind, around the edge of the ham. Gently lift rind off in one piece by running your fingers between the rind and the fat. Score the fat, about 1cm deep, in a diamond pattern, taking care not to cut into the meat. After removing the rind, wrap it in a damp tea towel and store in the fridge.