Skip to main content
Main

Baked Ham Butt

A ham butt baked with sugar, cloves, and cider or hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,683 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Baked Ham Butt

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the ham

  1. Remove the skin from the ham butt.

  2. Rub the light-brown sugar into the fat.

  3. Press the whole cloves into the fat surface.

Bake

  1. Place the ham in a roasting pan and add the cider or hot water.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1.5 hours, basting frequently.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Clove + cidertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,683 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Ham + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  3. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Ham + cidertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together83 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Sugar + cidertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and clove barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ham butt
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and juicy as it bakes slowly.
Light-brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown and caramelize in the oven.
Whole cloves
Add a warm, aromatic spice flavor that infuses the fat and surface of the ham.
Cider or hot water
Creates steam and moisture in the pan, keeping the ham from drying out while it bakes.

The step that matters

Baking with basting. Basting frequently with the pan liquid keeps the surface moist and helps the sugar glaze evenly, so the ham does not dry out or scorch during the long bake.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, sugar, cider):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sugar, cider. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Ham in CiderHam in Cider10 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes