Graham Crackers, Condensed Milk & Whipped Cream: recreating a childhood dessert

How about a picture of a super cute-two-year old to get you to read the entire post? :)

This is B, my friend Cindy's son, eating a dessert Cindy and I made over the weekend.

And here's the story:

Because my friends know how much I love food, they often call or email me with questions about recipes, ingredients or the best restaurants for a particular occasions. I'm always happy to help!

Last week, Cindy emailed and asked if I'd be willing to help with a few kitchen related projects: one was recreating her dad's  favorite childhood dessert, and the other was CANNING. I'll tell you about canning later. Dessert first.

It's hard to recreate a dessert you've never tasted, especially when you don't have a recipe to rely on. All Cindy knew was that the dessert was made in ice cube trays, had graham crackers on the bottom, then a layer of cooked sweetened condensed milk and was topped with whipped cream and then allowed to freeze.

Oy.

Cindy and I were up to the challenge.

Graham Cracker Dulce de Leche & Whipped Cream Frozen Treats
Ingredients
1 can Eagle Sweetened Condensed Milk (note: the unopened can in the photo below is just a prop)
1 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 packet graham crackers, crushed by hand
4 tablespoons melted butter
Equipment: 2 ice cube trays

Directions
1. Cook an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk in a large pot of simmering water for 3.5 hours. The water should cover the can completely. {Cindy did this a night before and texted me happily to let me know there had been no explosions.}

2. Whip the heavy whipping cream with sugar and set aside.
3. Combine the crushed graham crackers with melted butter and fill the ice cube trays about 1/3 way, slightly pressing the mixture down into the cubes.

4. Open the can of cooked sweetened condensed milk and put it into a Ziploc bag. This will be a mess, so be ready. The good thing, you will have a great time licking all of the cooked condensed milk from your fingers ;)
5. Cut off the corner of the bag and pipe the condensed milk on top of the graham cracker mixture. Miraculously, it was just enough to cover two trays!

6. Add whipped cream to each ice cube container and freeze for at least an hour.

Oh! I forgot to mention that when I came home early Saturday morning (2 am!) after a night of salsa dancing, I had an inkling that I should change the battery in my camera before heading out to Cindy's. Of course, I didn't get to it, and later found out my camera battery was dead. Thus, all of the photographs in this post were taken with Cindy's iPhone.

Here's the result:

The graham cracker bottom did not come out all in one piece from the ice cube tray. First, we tried removing each "cube" with a knife, but that did not work, so we just used a spoon to "scoop" them out. Although they did not look great, they tasted amazing!

If I were to make this dessert again, I'd make it in a springform pan and prebake the graham cracker crust before adding dulce de leche and whipped cream.

Do you have any other suggestions? Please share!