How Should I Adjust The Recipe To Make A Small Ham in Coca Cola?

Our answer

Nigella's Ham In Coca-Cola (from NIGELLA BITES) simmers gammon (a cured but uncooked ham) in cola and then cooks the ham in a hot oven to caramelise the sugar glaze. The timings given are for a 2kg gammon and for smaller cuts you should allow approximately 1 hour per kilo cooking time. Remember to add an extra 15 minutes if the ham has been in the fridge, so the 750g gammon should take about 1 hour. To check if the ham is cooked you can also use an instant-read thermometer and the internal temperature should be at least 75°C.

For the glaze you do need a very hot oven and the oven baking time does not really cook the ham any more, it is just to melt and caramelise the sugar. So the time is the same in the oven, regardless of the size of the ham. You could use the method for the Slow-Cooked Black Treacle Ham but we would suggest maybe using the glaze from that recipe, as the treacle tends to caramelise at a lower temperature. Alternatively, if your oven has a function that allows the fan and grill (broiler) to operate at the same time then you could try using this function on the highest heat as this will melt the glaze more quickly. But if you do this keep a close eye on the ham and turn/reposition it if necessary, to make sure that the sugar melts evenly, as the sugar can catch and burn more easily under the direct heat of the grill.