How To Make an Outstanding Baked Ham This Christmas, According To Attica’s Ben Shewry

A lot of people get a bit scared baking ham, but it’s really one of the easiest things you could prepare for Christmas.

A lot of people are going to say something similar, but the number one rule is that the success of your Christmas ham depends on the quality of your produce. You can’t take a bad ham and turn it into a good ham. It should be free range and it should be made locally, if you can afford that.

It’s a cooked meat, so what you’re trying to do is reheat it gently. I start by taking the skin off the ham by sliding a finger under a seam and running it through like you’re opening the flap of an envelope. I want to get the skin off without the fat. Once it’s off, I’m going to score it lightly in a criss-cross section: not right through to the meat, but about two or three millimetres deep and in squares of about two centimetres. Then I’m going to take a bunch of cloves and put a clove in the middle of each of those squares right across the ham.

Then you smear some brown sugar on the ham. Warm some apricot jam and mix it with Dijon mustard (in a 50/50 ratio), then put that to the side. Put the ham in a roasting tray, pour some fresh orange juice in the bottom, cover it with tin foil and put it in the oven, say at about 150 degrees Celsius. After an hour and a half to two hours, take it out of the oven and remove the foil, then keep baking it. By this time, the sugar should have melted and started to caramelise.

At this point, as it’s starting to get hot, I take a pastry brush and start gently glazing the ham with the jam and mustard mix. When it’s almost ready, the glaze will caramelise quite quickly. And I’m just going to keep baking it till it’s nicely golden and caramelised. Once you take it out, rest it for 15 minutes before serving. Make sure you’ve got a really sharp knife and a fork to carve the ham, plus a ham bag that you’ve washed in water and vinegar to store it.

Ben Shewry is owner and chef of lauded Melbourne fine diner Attica.

Here's where to buy Christmas hams in Melbourne and Sydney.

This article was published on December 5, 2022, and updated on December 8, 2025.

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