Glazed Baked Ham

Ingredients

• One half ready-to-eat, cooked ham, bone-in, shank end or butt end, about 9-11 pounds
• 3 Tbsp sweet hot honey mustard
• 2 Tbsp brown sugar
• About 50 cloves
• 3 Tbsp melted butter
• 2 Tbsp chopped fresh thyme
• 1/4 cup cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 Tbsp brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Directions

1. Take the ham out of the refrigerator, leaving the wrapping on, a couple of hours before cooking so it can lose some of its chill. Set it in a foil-lined roasting pan with the fattier side facing up. For a ham that is not spiral cut, use a sharp knife to mark the fat in diamonds, cutting about 1/4-inch to 1/2-inch down, with the lines spaced about 1 1/2-inches apart. Cut through the fat and any skin only, stopping before you reach the meat. If there is skin on the ham, you may remove it first, though you do not have to.
2. If you are using cloves with the sweet honey mustard glaze, press them in either before or after glazing. Adding them later looks a bit neater, while adding them earlier makes the scoring easier to follow. Place the cloves in the middle of the diamonds across the top and sides, or tuck them along some of the cut edges if you are working with a spiral-cut ham. You can also set them where the scored lines cross; the point is simply to make an even pattern.
3. Heat the oven to 325 degrees F.
4. For the sweet honey mustard glaze, stir the mustard and brown sugar together in a small bowl. For the honey thyme glaze, combine the thyme with the hot melted butter and leave it for a few minutes. Pour the cider vinegar into a small saucepan and boil it over high heat until it cooks down from 1/4 cup to 1 Tbsp, then take it off the heat. Whisk in the thyme butter, followed by the honey, brown sugar, and Worcestershire sauce.
5. Brush the ham with the glaze you chose, using a pastry brush. Use only about a third of it now and set the remaining glaze aside for later. Work some of the glaze down into the cuts if the ham has been scored.
6. Put the ham in the oven. For a spiral-cut ham, wrap it snugly in aluminum foil first to help protect it from drying out. Bake for about 1 1/2 hours, checking after 1 hour, or plan on about 10 minutes per pound. It may need more time if it started out cold. Warm it until a meat thermometer reads 110 degrees -120 degrees inside. Since the ham is fully cooked when purchased, you are only heating it through.
7. If the ham is not spiral cut, brush on more glaze a couple of times as it bakes. Should the surface begin to darken too much, lay a piece of foil over it.
8. Once the ham reaches the proper temperature, glaze it once more. If it is spiral cut, unfold the foil so the top is exposed before you brush it. Slide the ham under the broiler for a few minutes, just until the surface browns nicely. Remove the pan from the oven, spoon or brush the pan juices over the ham, cover it with aluminum foil, and let it rest for 15 minutes before serving.
9. To carve a bone-in ham, loosen slices by cutting near the bone, then shave off portions with a long, sharp knife. Another option is to trim a piece from the wide end so it sits flat, stand the ham on that end, and slice downward along the sides as you work around the bone. Save the ham bone for soup.