Gluten Free Cream Puff Recipe with Lactose Free Pastry Cream

Do you want to know a secret?
I love cream puffs. 
Do you want to hear a story?
Once upon a time there was a group of children who had a grand old time acting in a play. They had so much fun together but all that acting made them hungry. To ward of the hunger the nice Moms and Dads of these kids would bring snacks at intermission. All the kids loved snacks. Who doesn't? All the children loved it best when the parents brought cream puffs. All the kids except for one little girl. As the other children gobbled their cream puffs away in glorious bliss, this little girl watched the others with woeful eyes. Her heart nearly broke as she watched bite after bite of that beautiful dessert disappear down the other children's throats. She couldn't eat those cream puffs because she had food allergies to gluten and lactose. She didn't give up though. As she watched the other children eat those cream puffs she dreamed of the day when she would find and eat her own gluten free, lactose free cream puffs.
One day, years later, she found a recipe, tweaked it a little and voila...she had her cream puffs. I have this recipe for gluten free cream puffs posted below. These Cream Puffs are the truest definition of the word Fabulous. I filled them with pastry cream which is a type of pudding. You can also fill them with whipped cream, ice cream, or coconut cream if you choose.
 Special note I had to wash about 8 dishes by hand and 8 utensils in the dishwasher.(Just in case you care about how many dishes you have to clean)

Cream Puff Paste Recipe (makes approx. 12 largish cream puffs)
1/2 cup Water
4 T. Butter (or butter substitute)
1/2 T. Sugar
1/2 Cup SIFTED Key GF flour (recipe at bottom of blog)
3 Eggs (depending on how big your eggs are maybe 3)
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Preheat open to 400 degrees Farenheit. Put parchment paper on a pan.
Bring 3 eggs to room temperature. Beat the eggs lightly and set aside.
Boil water, butter, and sugar in a small saucepan. When the butter melts stir in the flour using a WOODEN spoon. Stir mixture over MEDIUM HEAT until the paste is oily and there is a crust on the bottom of the pot. Remove from heat.
This is what it should look like.

Now using the wooden spoon add in the eggs a little at a time. I added the eggs in increments of six, putting about 2 T. of egg into the mixture at each interval. Blend the eggs EXTRMELY well! If you don't completely mix the eggs in the mixture you could ruin the entire recipe! After you have added approxomitaely 2 1/2 eggs check the mixture. It should look something like this.

Cut a pastry bag to a diamater of about 4 cm. Spoon the paste into pastry bag and pipe onto prepared cookie sheets to about this size.

 The paste might be slightly runny, but do not worry. The paste will rise and rise and rise as it bakes like little bubbles in a lake except the cream puffs are in the oven not a lake. Anyways my point is that the cream puffs will literally PUFF UP. That is why they are called cream puffs. Bake for 22-28 min. The cream puffs should be golden and sound hollow when tapped. (Tap them gently or they will collapse). Be patient when your cream puffs are baking, if you open the oven door too soon your cream puffs could collapse.
 Drizzle your cream puffs with melted chocolate to make them look beautiful. Fill them with either whipped cream, whipped coconut cream, or ice cream. I filled my cream puffs with almond milk based pastry cream (aka vanilla pudding) The recipe is below.

Pastry Cream Recipe
3 egg yolks (room temperature)
2 Cups Lactose Free Milk (or Half n Half) or Almond Milk
1/2 cup sugar divided
5 T. Potato Starch
3 T. butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Tips: Make sure you don't have any egg whites mixed in with your egg yolks. The egg whites cook faster and will create lumps in your pudding.

Whisk eggs, 1/2 cup of milk, 1/4 cup of sugar and potato starch together in a medium sized steel bowl. (or any bowl just so its not plastic)
 Put  1 1/2 cups of milk in a saucepan along with 1/4 cup of sugar. Bring this to a boil over medium heat.
Next add about 1/3 of the heated milk and sugar into your egg mixture. Whisk constantly and briskly to combine. Now add the egg mixture to what is left of the milk mixture and set back on heat. Whisk briskly until the mixture thickens. Turn off heat and mix in the butter and vanilla. Allow your pastry cream to cool in the fridge before attempting to use in a recipe. 

Key Gluten Free Flour Recipe
2 cups Brown Rice Flour
2/3 cup Tapioca Flour
1/3 cup Potato Starch