In the last year whole hams and picnic hams have been one of the cheapest items in the meat department so it is only natural that Jan & I buy at least one have every month.

Generally I buy the precooked hams and once I get them home I cut them down into thick ham steaks, thinner breakfast ham steaks, sandwich ham slices and chunks which I put in the steamer with potatoes, carrots, onions & cabbage, or perhaps make a macaroni & cheese or scalloped potatoe & ham caserol, not to mention the huge pot of beans I make with the leftover ham bone. A couple times over the summer I put the ham in my smoker for about 8 to 10 hours with a very low fire but for Christmas I wanted to make a baked ham.

I have a half dozen tried & true recipes for making baked ham and perhaps another 25 or so that I found online, but this time I wanted to do something totally different so I set out to create a special glaze so I looked over a dozen or so glaze recipes then set off on my own, adapting ideas from each of them.

I began by putting 2 cups of water is a medium sauce pan and added 2 cups of raisin, which I then brought to a rolling boil for about 10 minutes. I turned the heat down and checked what I had. The raisins had plumped up nice and the water now had the appearance of a dark tea. I then added 1/2 teaspoon of ground cloves and a 1/2 cup of brown sugar and let that simmer for another 15 minutes while I cut diagonal slices on the ham and stuck cloves at the intersections of the score lines, then I put the ham, cut side down on a wire rack in my roaster and set that in a slow oven at 250degF and baked it for one hour.

During that hour I reduced the heat on the glaze just enough to keep it warm for about 45 minutes, then I turned the heat up again and added a can of Classic Coca Cola and simmered that about ten minutes. I then mixed one TBS of cornstarch in a 1/2cup of cold water and slowly added that to the glaze and continued simmering it until the glaze started to thicken a bit.

When the one hour timer went off for the ham I pulled the ham out and drizzled about 1/3 of my glaze over the ham and spreading it with a basting brush to be sure it was all coated, then the ham went back in the oven for another hour at 325deg.

When the hour was up I checked the core temp of the ham. 155degF, just right, The score lines had opened up nicely and the glaze had worked its way down into the score lines just as I had hoped.

I then took the remaining glaze and put it in a small serving bowl so it could be spooned over the thich ham slices when we served it.

Well, as is true of any food, the real test is in the tasting. When we sat down to dinner I watched everyone as they tried the ham, everyone was impressed, Not only were they impressed, almost everyone wanted a copy of my recipe, so I thought I would share it with you all as well.