Custard Cream Puffs

Just came back from a holiday in Hawai'i, feeling recharged and back to daily cooking routine as well as baking. I enjoy baking more than cooking. However, baking will make you put on weight with all the sugar and butter as ingredients. Sometimes the temptation is irresistible!  

Recipe adapted from happyhomemaker88.com

Ingredients for Pastry:
250ml (1 Cup) water
150 gram (1/2 Cup) Butter or Margarine
125 gram (1 Cup) All Purpose Flour (I used Bread flour instead as recommended by readers from happyhomemaker88.com)
4 Large Eggs
1/2 Teaspoon Salt (reduce or omit if using salted Butter or Margarine)

Ingredients for Custard Filling:
3 Large Egg Yolks
200 gram Sugar (slightly less than 1 cup)( - or adjust the amount to your preference )
750ml milk (3 Cups)
20 gram Flour (1 1/2 Tablespoons)
20 gram Cornstarch (1 1/2 Tablespoons)
1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla

To make pastry:1. Pre-heat oven to 200C or 400F.
2. Heat water, salt and butter to a rolling boil; reduce heat. Tip in the flour and stir vigorously over low heat until mixture forms into a ball, about 1 minute.
3. Remove from heat. Add in the eggs, one at a time, while beating until dough mixture is smooth.
4. Use rounded teaspoonfuls (or tablespoonfuls, depending on the size you like) or a piping bag to make mounds of dough set about 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
5. Bake puffs until they are puffed and golden brown, 20 to 30 minutes. Cool.

6. Slit each puff halfway and put in the custard filling (recipe below).

To make custard filling:

1. Beat yolk and sugar until white. Pour in milk bit by bit while mixing until sugar is melted.

2. Put in flour, cornstarch, vanilla and mix until smooth.

3. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture boils and is thick.  (Initially I was worried that the custard was not thick enough to pipe into the puffs, the custard will be thickened as it cools down.)

4. Cool the custard. Put custard into a piping bag (if you don't have one, you can use a ziplock bag as a piping bag) and pipe it into the puffs at the slit end. 
5. The custard puffs are best eaten when chilled.. :)