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Baked Ham

A ham baked with milk, brown sugar, cinnamon, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA medium oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Boil the ham slowly on the stove for about 1 hour.

  2. Pour off the water and place the ham in a roasting pan.

  3. Pour in the milk.

Glaze and bake

  1. Cover the top of the ham with brown sugar and sprinkle with cinnamon.

  2. Insert whole cloves into the ham.

  3. Bake in a medium oven at 350°F (175°C) until heated through.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 piece of meat, gently heated through in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture to the pan, helping the ham stay juicy as it heats.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the surface and caramelizes into a browned glaze in the oven.
Cinnamon
Adds a warm aroma to the sugar glaze.

The step that matters

Bake until heated through. The ham is already cooked, so the goal is to warm it, not cook it further. Overheating dries the meat and can scorch the sugar glaze. Watch the surface as the sugar darkens.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, milk, sugar, 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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