Baked Spiced Orange Glazed Ham – Easy

Baked Spiced Orange Glazed Ham is the secret to serving a superbly moist ham flavoured with orange juice, mustard, marmalade, cinnamon, and star anise. It’s a knockout main course to serve for a special occasion.

Don’t be daunted by the thought of baking a whole ham as this Baked Spiced Orange Glazed Ham is not only easy, it looks spectacular and makes a sensational centerpiece. Oh, and did we mention it can be prepared ahead of time. What’s not to like.

At a Glance This Is What You Need To Make Baked Spiced Orange Glazed Ham

Spiced Orange Glaze

The best glazes for a glorious golden baked ham contain either brown sugar, honey or maple syrup. The saltiness of the ham juices release into the sweetness of the glaze complementing the glazes flavour.

To make the glaze we start off mixing all the glaze ingredients together in a medium-sized saucepan and bring it to a boil then reduce to a rolling simmer for about 15-20 minutes. During this time the glaze starts to reduce and become a little syrupy. At this point remove a cup and a half of the glaze and pop that into a pan to reduce further till you have a thickish syrupy consistency.

This delicious glaze becomes the sauce to serve with your Baked Spiced Orange Glazed Ham. As we like to have a lot of glaze to serve we make double the recipe quantity. Invariably when we cook a whole ham we’re serving up a feast. It’s hard to know how much glaze each guest will serve themselves, and there’s nothing worse than running out of glaze!

The glaze can be prepared up to 5 days ahead and refrigerated.

How Much Ham To Buy

You’ll need to allow 225g (1/2 pound) per person with the bone in, and 150gm (1/3 pound) per person without the bone. As the saying goes some people will eat more and some will eat less than expected, so it will even out.

On this occasion we cooked several of our Maple Glazed Bacon Chicken for a bit of variety, so we could have fed half of the army if they decided to drop by. 🙄

Needless to say if you’re cooking other proteins as we did, you can adjust your calculation for how much ham will be needed.

Invariably after you spent a few days shopping, cooking and serving your guests its always great to have some cold leftover ham for whipping up a quick ham sandwich, or tossing some through your scrambled eggs or pasta salad, so don’t be afraid to over calculate a little.

Preparing The Ham To Bake

Removing the rind is easily done. Watch our video below to see how easy it really is. You simply require a small sharp knife to cut through the rind firstly by running the knife around the bottom of the shank.

Next up run the knife all the way around the edge of the rind. Using your fingers lift the rind by inserting your fingers between the rind and the fat and run your fingers across the fat under the rind.

The rind easily separates from the fat and you just keep running your fingers across the fat till the rind lifts off.

Scoring The Fat

Scoring the fat allows the glorious glaze to seep into the meat and as the fat slightly renders the fat juices seep into the glaze adding a wonderful salty ham flavour into the glaze.

HOT TIP

Only score about 3/4 of the way into the fat (not into the meat) to create the diamonds, or else the fat diamonds may fall off when cooking.

Storing The Ham

Leftover ham on the bone is best stored in a calico, or cotton ham bag as the fabric allows the ham to breathe rather than go all sweaty if wrapped in plastic. If you don’t have a ham bag you can use a pillow case or a couple of tea towels.

Either way you soak the fabric in a little cold water (about 4 cups) along with 2 tablespoons of white or brown vinegar. Wring out the excess water and place the ham in the bag and store on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator as it’s the coldest part.

Re-soak the bag every few days or when the fabric has dried out.

Watch How To Make Baked Spiced Orange Glazed Ham

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Piggy in the Middle

Jen’s son Dan got us this glorious cooked smoked ham from ‘Piggy in the Middle’ at Kilkivan in Queensland, Australia. Piggy in the Middle is the collaboration of two hardworking families dedicated to producing produce that has been ethically raised in a natural, chemical free environment.

They’re passionate about their land and livestock that are free range and pasture raised. The animals are free to forage and behave instinctively, in a natural stress-free habitat and the results are sensational. Ham that is moist and full of incredible smoky flavour.

Click here to visit their website.

Don’t forget to rate this recipe and let us know what you thought when you make this fabulous Baked Spiced Orange Glazed Ham in the reviews below. 

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Yield: 16 serves

Baked Spiced Orange Glazed Ham

Prep Time: 45 minutes

Cook Time: 2 hours 30 minutes

Total Time: 3 hours 15 minutes

Baked Spiced Orange Glazed Ham is the secret to serving a superbly moist ham flavoured with orange juice, mustard, marmalade, cinnamon and star anise. It's a knockout main course to serve for any festive occasion.

First published April 2021

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Ingredients

spiced orange glaze

• 6 fat cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 cup orange marmalade
• 1/2 cup dijon mustard
• 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 2 cinnamon quills
• 3 star anise
• 2 tablespoons orange zest
• 3 cups fresh orange juice
• optional - 4-6 fresh oranges peeled and thinly sliced - see notes
• optional - cloves to place in the centre of each slice of orange

ham

• 7 1/2 kg fully cooked ham on the bone (16.5 pounds)

Instructions

spiced orange glaze

place all ingredients in a medium sized saucepan and bring to a boil then reduce to a rapid simmer

simmer for 15 minutes

remove 1 1/2 cups of glaze to a small saucepan and reduce further until glaze is sticky (so that you can brush it over the ham)

reserve remaining glaze to pour over the ham

see notes below

preparing and baking the ham

1. preheat oven to 150c (300f) on bake, not fan
2. remove skin from ham (watch video above if you're not sure how to do this)
3. use a sharp knife to score ham in a diamond pattern only slicing about 3/4 of the way through the fat (see video)
4. wrap shank in a little baking paper then cover paper with foil
5. place ham in a large baking dish
6. place in the oven for 15 minutes
7. remove tray from oven and brush with reduced glaze and return to oven for 15 minutes
8. remove from oven and pour all of the remaining glaze over and around the ham
9. baste every 15 minutes for 2 1/2 hours till fat is golden and sticky
10. remove from oven
11. pour glaze from baking dish into a medium pot and heat when ready to serve
12. optional - garnish with thin slices of fresh orange with a clove placed in the centre of each slice
13. serve and enjoy!

Notes

* we doubled the glaze quantitiies because we like to have a lot of sauce to pour over our ham

*we garnished our glazed ham with slices of fresh oranges studded with a clove, but this is completely optional