How to Make and Carve the Juiciest Bone-In, Whole Holiday Ham

For the glaze, combine all ingredients in a small bowl and set aside until ready to use. You could wait to do this until the ham has been cooking a few hours.Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Remove any coverings or wrappings from the ham itself. Place the ham on your roasting rack, fat side up. The pan should be shallow and free of any water on the bottom. In other words, It should be completely dry.You'll want to score the ham before baking. Scoring not only looks beautiful but allows any fat to render from the ham and lets the glaze seep in. Score the ham's fat in diamonds, going only a 1/4" deep with a knife. I use a strip of heavy paper, 12 x 2 inches, as a guide to cut perfectly parallel lines.Insert meat thermometer deep into the ham and bake until internal temperature reaches 130 degrees F. Remove ham from the oven and brush with glaze, making sure to get into the all of the crevices made by scoring. Add pineapple chunks and cherries at this time if desired, securing with toothpicks. Place ham back into the oven until internal temperature reaches 150 degrees. Remove from oven and let ham rest 15-20 minutes before carving.Remove the ham from the roasting rack and place it on a sturdy cutting board. A towel underneath the cutting board will help it not to slide across the counter. You will need a very sharp knife. I prefer a 9" carver for this type of job and a carving fork. First, trim a couple of slices from the ham parallel to its length. This will allow the ham to rest flatly on it's side while carving the rest of the meat.Now that your ham is resting on the flat side you created, use your carving fork to hold the ham firmly in place. Start at the shank end and cut slices downward until you hit the bone. You can make the slices as thick or thin as you like. To release the slices you already cut, use your knife and cut parallel along the bone. Continue this around the ham until you have the amount of slices you prefer.