Soufflés

Souffles look hard, and sound hard, but really aren't. It's pretty difficult to bollocks one up and the general populace will never believe that it took you exactly 11 minutes to whip something that impressive up. When you serve a simple souffle people think you're some sort of culinary genius, which is just fine with me. The simple fact is that a culinary doofus could make a souffle.

You can whip up a quick souffle even if your cupboard is almost totally bare. All you need is an egg or two, some sugar, fruit and a starch (in this case, cornstarch). If that wasn't reason enough to love the souffle, consider this: You can make them well in advance and just bung them back in the oven to re-puff them.