My gift to you…

is in the form of a holiday ham baking tip. (You balk?  WELL!):

You made Pioneer Woman’s bread pudding with whiskey cream sauce for Christmas breakfast, correct?  If you didn’t, back up the clock and make this for your family’s holiday breakfast. 

 

Yeah, that!*

Surely you had some whiskey sauce left over (made with these heavenly ingredients and these ingredients only… heavy cream, sugar, butter and whiskaaaay).  Yes?

And your plans for the afternoon are to make a Christmas ham, I assume? 

 

(You know where this is going, don’t you?  Don’t laugh; how do you think Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups came about?)

And that ham is pre-sliced, right? 

And it came with a pre-made sugary-molasses glaze, right?

And your dear husband got a silicone basting brush in his stocking, right?

(Yeah, you know where we’re headed here.)

Before sending the ham into the oven (covered with foil, of course), take that silicone brush that Santa bequeathed upon your hubby and spread a little gooey whiskey-butter cheer  upon each and every slice of the Christmas ham.  For good measure, brush a bunch all over the outside of the ham too. Don’t use it all, though.  We’re not done!

Now put the ham into the oven, with a little whiskey sauce rubbed onto each slice, but without the glaze that came with the ham.  As the directions say, you’ll be spreading that glaze on the ham only when it’s almost heated through.

After the ham goes into the oven take that sugary molasses-laden ham glaze, pour it into a sauce pan, and to it add all that leftover cheer in the form of gooey alcohol-laden butter and sugar… and VOILA!  You now have a delicious whiskeybutterysugarymolassasy saucepan full of cheer.

About 15 minutes before the ham is finished cooking, brush the whiskey-butter-sugar-etc glaze on the all over it with said brush that sure is getting a lot of use for its first day.  Send it back into the oven for a few, and serve – along with Kat’s favorite homemade mashed potatoes (with some skin left on, per Peter’s insistence) and fresh cooked green beans. 

Merry Christmas!

*First three photos are courtesy of Pioneer Woman.  Stolen with love and admiration and a fair amount of bowing and groveling.