A good ham glaze recipe can mean the difference between a great ham and a spectacular ham.
Glaze Expectations
Baked ham is naturally flavorful. In fact, if you did not have a ham glaze recipe handy or if you forgot to glaze your ham, your meal would still be delicious. What a good ham glaze does is enhances the ham flavor by adding complementary flavors to the ham. A ham glaze will also give the outside of the ham a great color and texture.
Most traditional ham glaze recipes will contain brown sugar. Brown sugar is naturally matched with ham and draws out the ham's best flavors. A fun test of this is to take a sheet tray lined with parchment. Place a rack on the sheet tray with several slices of bacon on top. Sprinkle some of the bacon strips with a little brown sugar. Bake this in a 350-degree oven for about 10 minutes. Let the bacon cool and then taste the two different bacon strips. You will find the bacon sprinkled with the brown sugar has a richer, more complex flavor. By the way, this way of cooking bacon is how restaurants get their bacon to be flat and evenly cooked. If you cook your bacon this way without the brown sugar, it's a great way of producing clean bacon fat, which is called for in many southern recipes.
Ham Glaze Recipe
Ham glaze is usually used just before the ham is done cooking. For the best results, glaze the ham twice--once at 20 minutes before it is finished and again 10 minutes before the ham is done. This recipe is good for a 6-8 pound ham.
Ingredients
- 1 cup of brown sugar
- 1/2 cup of apple cider
- 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard
- A pinch of cinnamon
- A pinch of allspice
- 1 ounce (about 3 tablespoons) of dry sherry
Instructions
- Bring all ingredients to a simmer.
- Simmer until the sugar is dissolved.
- Glaze the ham 20 minutes before done cooking.
- Glaze again when there is 10 minutes remaining.
- Allow 18 minutes per pound of ham.
- If there is any glaze leftover, feel free to serve it with the ham.
