How to bake a ham the easy way!

In our household you cannot have Christmas without a baked ham. We hang out for it. I buy the biggest one I can. We then eat it for days, then we finish it off by making ham and corn fritters. So good!!!! Let me show you how to bake a ham the easy way!.

In the early days of baking my hams I used to make up glazes that had multiple ingredients. I was then required to keep basting the ham throughout the cooking process. I got sick of that and wanted to do something that would enable me to prepare it. Put it in the oven and then forget about it for a few hours.

One day close to Christmas I was at a deli and saw Beerenberg Farms Pear and Vanilla jam. Something clicked and I thought that would be delicious with ham. That changed the way I did my ham forever. Unfortunately this jam is no longer available but I have used so many different jams now.

Instructions for preparing to bake a ham the easy way

As we all love ham in our family I buy the biggest and best ham I can. Christmas day guests also leave with a bundle of ham. As I like a big ham I always get a full one but you can get a half leg if you only have a small family. The instructions are still the same.

The only tricky part of this whole process is removing the skin. You need to remove it whilst leaving behind as much of the fat as you can. This is what will caramelise and make the ham delicious. The first thing I do is use a sharp knife to cut around the skin on the shank about 10cm from the end. You want to leave the skin on the shank as you will use this to decorate the ham for presentation.

I find the easiest way to do this is to use the knife along the edge. Then run your fingers under it to separate the skin. If you feel that too much fat starts to come away with the skin, take your knife and try and separate the fat again from the skin. Then continue on with your fingers. Don’t worry too much if your first go is a little patchy, you will get better with practice and it will still look great. More importantly taste great!!

After removing the skin you need to score the fat. There are no rules for this you can do a simple diamond pattern like I did. You can do a striped pattern which also looks really good. The thing to remember is not to cut too deep. If you go too deep the fat will separate and you don’t get an even pattern. Here’s the thing! I like going down a bit as it helps to flavour the ham and I don’t really care about perfect presentation. This is not a fussy recipe!!! If you do care about it than go slowly and carefully.

Baking the ham the easy way

Preheat your oven to 150C. You will need a roasting pan and a meat rack. The jam I used this time was Maggie Beers Raspberry and Pomegranate and it was perfect. There are so many jams out there the choice is yours. You could even use a marmalade.

You will need to use some aluminium foil to cover the shank end of the ham so it doesn’t burn. Then place the ham in your roasting pan. I then just scoop out the jam and spread on all of the ham pressing into the score marks. You want to give the ham a good coating of the jam as some will drip off during cooking.

Once you have covered the ham in jam as pictured move the tray and ham to the oven. I put mine on the bottom shelf. BE CAREFUL with this step. The ham is very heavy, especially if you use a full ham. When the ham is in the oven safely, take a jug and fill the tray up to half way with water. I do this for two reasons. Firstly it stops the dripping jam from burning in the tray and secondly it makes the ham very moist. The hard work is all done now, you slowly bake the ham for 2hrs. If you notice the ham glaze is burning turn your oven down to 100C and increase the time in the oven by 20 mins.

Decorating your finished ham

You will notice from the above photos what I was talking about earlier. When you cut through the fat into the ham flesh, as its roasting you can see the score lines separating. In the second picture of the finished ham you can see there are large gaps in the fat, those are the areas that I cut too deep. If you’re bothered by those imperfections then I would suggest you try just gently pressing the knife into the fat rather than running the blade through.

To finish the ham you need to dress the shank. The steps I take are as follows:-

• Wrap the shank first in baking paper kept in place using a rubber band;
• I then used a white fabric napkin to cover the baking paper again held in place by a rubber band. If you don’t have a rubber band, kitchen twine or ribbon will also work. (I use the baking paper to stop my decorative items from getting covered in delicious stickiness);
• Next up choose a wide ribbon that matches your decor. Wrap it around the shank and tie into a nice big bow.
• You can now be creative and add whatever you like to the plate and the shank end. I used a red berry pick with some extra green bits added. I then inserted it under the ribbon. Lastly I added some loose bits of greenery to the cake plate.

Thats how to bake a ham the easy way

The only thing left to do is enjoy!!!! You can serve the ham warm (recommended) or cold. Either way its going to knock the socks off your guests. I usually serve the ham warm for Christmas lunch. Then we have it cold for boxing day when we make sandwiches for lunch. Breakfast is usually ham and eggs. We eat that ham until its almost gone. Then I use the last of it to make ham and corn fritters. I’ll share that recipe on the blog soon. My mouth is watering looking at these pictures.

If you haven’t decorated your tree yet check out what I did to mine.