Honey Baked Ham - Cooking Ham Instructions

Cooking holiday honey baked ham is so easy with these cooking ham instructions! Your guests will be clamoring for seconds and your Mother-in-Law will sit at the table in awestruck silence.

You won't need any leftover ham recipes because with this ham glaze method and ham baking technique there won't be any leftovers.

Cooking

Harry Hoenselaar invented the spiral slicing machines for ham. He tried to sell his patent to every ham producer he could but had no takers. So in 1957 he started the honey baked ham enterprise and we've been in love with honey glazed ham ever since.

Honey Baked Ham - Cooking Ham Instructions

But you don't have to lineup at one of his market for your holiday ham because this method produces an approximately selfsame stock and a whole lot cheaper.

Cooking Ham Instructions

The first step in these cooking ham instructions is selecting the best ham for baking. The best ham is the one the processors have altered the least!

That leaves out canned ham, boneless ham and especially "ham - water added" and "ham and water product". Check the labels and be sure!

I do like spiral sliced for ease in serving though. That is processing but it doesn't sway the flavor like adding water or deboning.

Hams come in three separate cuts. First there's a whole ham, which is good if you've got a larger crowd to serve. Any way whole hams have a tricky bone structure that might make carving more difficult even if it is spiral sliced.

Then there are half hams, which are convenient for fewer people. Halves are either the butt portion, which is the top half or the shank portion, which is the lower half.

The butt measure has a greater ratio of meat to bone but it's also where that tricky bone structure is. The shank measure has only one bone to navigate while carving and undoubtedly tastes better to me.

Choose whichever measure you like but be sure the label says, "Ham in Natural Juices". My personal preference is a fully cooked, spiral cut shank portion.

Ham Glaze - Honey Baked Ham Recipe

This is undoubtedly a easy glaze but the results are outstanding. It's just 1/4 cup of dark corn syrup, 2 cups of honey and 2/3 cup of butter. Heat up the ingredients and stir to consolidate and it's ready to go.

Since we're dealing with a fully cooked stock we're only going to bring the ham to serving climatic characteristic as gently as possible.

The starting of that process is a hot water soak! This will raise the climatic characteristic without the ham ever going in the oven. Then we'll use an oven bag for the oven time.

Be sure the packaging has no holes. Place it in a holder or your sink and cover with hot tap water. Let it sit in the hot water for about 45 minutes and then drain. Cover with hot tap water again and let it soak an additional one 45 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 250 degrees.

Remove the ham from the packaging and place it in the oven bag. Derive the top of the bag and use the tie in case,granted to tie it. Cut any excess bag off from the top.

Place the holder in a roasting pan and punch four or five holes in the top for steam to escape. Put the pan in the preheated oven.

The ham should reach an internal climatic characteristic of 100 degrees in an hour to an hour and a half depending on its weight. Cooking time is about 10 minutes per pound. The only way to be sure is with a meat thermometer or instant read thermometer.

Remove it from the oven and cut the bag open and peel it down from the sides. Growth the oven climatic characteristic to 350 degrees.

Brush the ham generously with 1/3 of the honey glaze and place it back into the oven for 15 minutes. The internal climatic characteristic should now be approaching 115 degrees.

Remove it from the oven and brush again with an additional one 1/3 of the honey glaze. Place it on a cutting board and tent it with foil. Residual cooking will bring the climatic characteristic to 125 or 130 degrees. Excellent for serving!

Add enough of the ham juices from the oven bag to the remaining glaze to make a nice sauce.

Carve the ham and serve it up with the honey glaze sauce.

Leftover Ham Recipes

In the event you do have leftovers you're a lucky individual. Leftover ham is so useful.

If your family is overstuffed with ham right now you can even freeze leftovers to use at a latter date.

Personally I like just a plain ham and cheese sandwich with leftovers but there are worlds of recipes for creating entirely new dishes from leftovers.

Honey Baked Ham - Cooking Ham Instructions