Beautiful way to make and present Baked Ham

Now I got this from the television show "The Chew", and had to give it a try.

CHEW recipe called for a whole boneless precooked ham. I think I made a mistake in that because I was not cooking for a large group and did not want to spend a lot, I purchased a half of a precooked ham.  I think that the side exposed by where it was sliced, created more liquid that a whole ham would have.

So here is the idea, you are going to bake ( heat) a ham inside a bread crust.

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You are going to need
4    hours before you plan on eating
1    boneless precooked ham
1    jar pepper jelly
1   egg
at lease enough dough for two loafs of bread

Rimmed sheet pan, parchment paper, aluminum foil

An electric knife makes slicing this for serving, much easier.

It is important to this process that you allow your ham to come to room temperature before starting. Because the ham is precooked your are just wanting to warm it and awaken all that flavor. If you start with a cold ham, your bread will be  well past done before the ham is thoroughly heated , So ham comes out of the fridge at least one hour prior.

A confession:  I purchased frozen bread dough. (this will need to thaw in the refrigerator  12 to 24 hours before you plan to start).  (about 16 hours for mine).  If you are making your own bread dough you can probably do that while your ham is coming to room temp.

Putting this together;
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees
Cover your baking dish with parchment paper.  Makes cleanup nicer as well as help moving the ham to the cutting board.
In a small bowl beat egg with a splash of water , set aside
Score the top side of your ham with a sharp knife ,
Dough should be in one peace so if using two thawed loafs, take a moment to kneed the loaves together.  Roll the dough into an oval shape , with the dough about 1/4 inch thick.
Liquefy your Pepper Jelly to make it easier to spread about.
Transfer dough to parchment paper
Spread a generous amount of pepper jelly in middle of dough (roughly the size of the ham)
Place ham on the dough
Cover top of ham in pepper jelly.
Now draw dough up over the ham, covering it fully, sealing over lapping edges with water and pinching together as needed.
Using a pastry brush cover dough with egg , coating it completely
Ham now goes into the oven .  You are going to bake this for one and a half hours.  And as we all know bread normally does not cook this long.  So, one you must understand that you are using the dough as a baking shell ( that will assist in the cooking, smell great, and will turn out to be a loved part of the meal. Your primary objective is NOT baking bread. That being said, about 30 minutes into the baking, check the bread, if it is browning too quickly, tent the ham with aluminum foil to retard browning,
Now allow the ham to rest for an hour to hour and a half.  So as you can see this would make a main dish that would easily transport to that party you need to attend.

So.
Using half a ham, I reduced cook time to one hour.
I also reduced oven temp to 325 when I tented the ham.  It did not harm anything, but I should have left it alone.  But I was mentally trying to bake bread, not cook a ham.
Changes I aim to try
My daughter Laura and I both think a rye bread dough would be a nice alternative.
I am thinking a mustard or honey mustard instead of the pepper jelly especially with the rye bread.

Blackberry Upside Down Cake

Let be start by saying that when assembling this cake, I was sure that the cake batter was not going to adequately cover the topping.

SURPRISE

Original Recipe from Allrecipes.com and says it was submitted by PamelaP.  I initially was thinking I needed to do something to get the thick batter to better/more evenly cover the topping. Not so sure  that  is needed now.

INGREDIENTS

TOPPING                                                                                           CAKE

1/4 Cup Brown Sugar                                                                         1 Cup White Sugar

2 TBL Spoons Unsalted Butter                                                           1/2 Cup softened butter

2 Cups fresh blackberries                                                                   2 Eggs

3/4 Cup white sugar                                                                           1 1/2 Cup all purpose flour

                                                                                                           2 TSP baking powder

                                                                                                           1/2 TSP salt

                                                                                                           1/4 Cup milk 

                                                                                                           1 TSP vanilla extract

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. You will  need a 9 inch cake pan ( non-stick if you have it)
3. Melt brown sugar and butter in saucepan, over medium heat.  Add blackberries to brown sugar mixture; cook and stir until mixture bubbles ( 1 to 3 minutes). Stir in 3/4 cup white sugar into berry mixture. Crush berries slightly while stirring, continue cooking until berries are hot and slightly broken down,  ( about 5 minutes ). Remove from heat and pour into cake pan.
4. Beat 1 cup white sugar and the 1/2 cup butter in a bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy
5. Whisk together dry ingredients in a bowl.  Alternately add dry ingredients and milk beginning and ending with flour. Then mix vanilla into batter. (see no reason not to add this to butter/sugar/egg mixture)
6. Pour batter over blackberry topping. Now I just have to interject here that this batter does not pour. Which was the cause of my initial concern.  So Spoon batter over topping and without blending batter and topping smooth together batter clumps the best you can.  Do not worry about getting all the topping covered. I did not and see the picture above.
7. Bake in your preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes . Allow cake to cool for up to 30 minutes. Loosen cake from sides of pan. Invert onto a plate larger that the pan,( so a 12 inch plate,  topping will drip down sides). Lift pan slowly to release cake. 

My cake fell, could be I did not let cake cool long enough.

 As a result the topping pooled in the  middle, which then soaked  the middle of the cake.  Causing the very center of a wedge of cake to be mushy, flavorful but mushy.

I am considering; trying this is a small bundt pan.  

Cooking it to the 40 minute mark ( at 35 minutes my cake passed the toothpick test )

Perhaps adding a tsp of  butter flavoring to the topping.

And I think it could use a touch of cinnamon in the topping.