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Baked Ham. No. 1

A ham baked with butter, sugar, pepper, crackers, cloves, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Baked Ham. No. 1

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the ham for an hour, then wipe it dry.

  2. Cover the ham with butter.

  3. Place the ham in a dish.

  4. Put the dish in the dripping pan.

Bake and glaze

  1. Bake for 8 to 10 hours until done.

  2. Remove the crust and skin from the ham.

  3. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons of white sugar, black pepper, and powdered crackers onto the ham.

  4. Rub the ham with the sugar, pepper, and crackers.

Finish

  1. Place the ham in a pan without water.

  2. Bake slowly until the surface is a clear, rich brown.

  3. Stick whole cloves all over the ham.

  4. Dredge the ham with cinnamon.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
The main cut; long, slow baking cooks it through and keeps it moist.
Butter
Adds fat to the surface, helping it stay moist and brown evenly.
White sugar
Caramelises on the surface, giving a rich brown colour and sweetness.
Powdered crackers
Adds fine crumbs that cling to the surface and help form a browned crust.

The step that matters

Bake slowly until the surface is a clear, rich brown. Sugar on the surface caramelises and browns quickly, so it can scorch if the heat is too high. Slow baking lets the sugar colour evenly and the ham cook through without burning.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, sugar, pepper, cinnamon. 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.

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