Easy Lemon Pudding and Cream Puffs

My roommates and I had an International Holiday Part on 12/7.. with the next week was finals I was a bit stressed, so I opted to make cream puffs, but wanted to try something different... I began by making homemade Lemon Pudding to fill them with. I loved the recipe, although I should have waited longer for the Pudding to set up more before filling them. Sorry no pics of the cream puffs, but they looked great on the Blue Platter, all sprinkled with sifted powdered sugar over them. See italics at the end of the recipes for the changes I made to it.

Lemon Pudding

• ¾ cup sugar
• ¼ cup cornstarch
• 2 ½ cups milk
• 3 egg yolks, beaten
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons butter

1. In a saucepan whisk together sugar and cornstarch.
2. Over medium heat, slowly whisk in milk. And cook for 2-3 minutes or until slightly thickened.
3. Place one cup of hot pudding mixture into a small bowl with the egg yolks. Whisk together. You are tempering the eggs.
4. Return egg/pudding mixture to the pan and continuing cooking over med heat until thickened. You need to stir this consistently.
5. Remove from heat and add lemon juice and butter. Stir until butter is melted and mixture is combined.
6. Strain pudding to remove any lumps.
7. Serve warm or cover with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator.  
8. *Knowing there would not be a lot of lemon pudding per cream puff, I bumped up the flavor at the end, by adding two cap-fulls of lemon extract after removing it from the heat. 
9. *I also did not strain the pudding. 
10. *I did the the egg/hot pudding mixture earlier, rather then later so they would not get stringy, and it worked really well.) 

Pastry Shell

1/2 cup butter

1 cup water

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup all-purpose flour

4 eggs

1	Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
2.	In a large pot, bring water and butter to a rolling boil. Stir in flour and salt until the mixture forms a ball. Transfer the dough to a large mixing bowl. Using a wooden spoon or stand mixer, beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto an ungreased baking sheet.
3.	Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, until golden brown. Centers should be dry.
4.	When the shells are cool, either split and fill them with the pudding mixture, or use a pastry bag to pipe the pudding into the shells. *I just used my kitchen aid, and it worked really well.*