20 Popular Foods You Should Never Make At Home

Beef Wellington is complicated for a few reasons. First, it requires an expensive cut of meat: a center-cut beef tenderloin. So, unless you're absolutely sure you can nail this dish, many people aren't going to want to shell out that kind of cash only to overcook or undercook the meat. The puff pastry, whether you make your own or grab a pre-made one, is the other tricky part considering it needs to be rolled out gently and draped over the meat. 

Unless you have Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and a particular interest in things that take hours and hours to make, this is something you shouldn't attempt at home. Boeuf bourguignon is a carefully cooked beef stew braised in red wine and beef stock. The comfort food needs to cook very slowly for about three hours until the meat is fork-tender. And it's not even that the recipe is super complex — it's just one of those French classics that should be left untouched.

When it comes to croissants, it's all about laminated dough. It's a meticulous technique that involves folding the pastry over dozens of times to create a "book" of dough that will have layers and layers of dough and butter. When these layers bake in a hot oven, the butter melts and causes steam, which in turn causes each layer to puff before it evaporates and creates distinct layers of flaky pastry. And with mouthwatering croissants available at coffee shops and many of the best breakfast places in America, there's really no need to roll up your sleeves for this one.

To make a truly decadent lobster bisque, you have to make your own stock. And you can do that by submerging live lobsters in boiling water for about 20 minutes and then saving the water for the base. The lobsters' claws and tails also need to be cleaned, and the meat, legs and swimmerets must be reserved for the actual bisque. It's a lengthy process that can take more than three hours, and if you have that time anyway, why not just venture out to a top-rated seafood spot?

If you're a brunch enthusiast, pick from any of these delicious homemade brunch recipes. But for English muffins, head straight to the store. A soft and satisfying muffin with just the right texture isn't easy to pull off at home. Not only do you need to let the dough rest overnight to create the nooks and crannies characteristic of English muffins, but you also need to cook the dough using two methods: a stovetop griddle and in the oven.

Baked Alaska is worthy of being the centerpiece of any table. However, it may need to be devoured quickly. It's basically cake topped with scoops of ice cream and covered in a fluffy white meringue before being baked in the oven. Some recipes call for freezing the mounds of pound cake and ice cream until the ice cream is hard before baking, taking quite a bit of forward planning and time, and some variations use a Swiss meringue and a blowtorch to create the dramatic golden peaks. But the truth is, meringue is not fool-proof and takes a bit of work — preferably the work of pastry chefs.

Making homemade mozzarella sounds like an exciting endeavor, but it's likely too much work for something you can buy easily. All of the kneading and stretching required to make homemade mozzarella just isn't worth it, especially with so many supermarkets offering cheese counters and extensive selections of gourmet cheeses.

Souffles are one of the most impressive things you could make, that's why they can be found at many of the most expensive restaurants in the world. But they're known to be a challenge. The most common concern for home cooks is a souffle collapsing as soon as it comes out of the oven — made even more horrifying if you have guests over. The main technique required when making a souffle is properly whisking air into the egg whites while at the same time not overbeating them into a deflated mess.

Barbeque is a summertime staple and it may seem like most people could pull off barbeque with all the side dishes. However, it almost goes without saying that most home cooks probably don't have the space or equipment to successfully pull off some tasty whole-hog barbecue, so it's better to leave it to the experts.

A croquembouche is a dramatic dessert tower made entirely of cream puffs that are stuffed with pastry cream. The choux puffs are glued together with caramel and whimsically wrapped in spun sugar. The tower is the end result, but each part of the dessert requires some skill. The dough is made in a saucepan over heat, which means the eggs need to be tempered properly. The pastry cream needs not to curdle and the homemade caramel should be just right (along with the sugar strings). You're 100% better off heading to a French patisserie or the sweetest dessert shop near you for a bite into a cream puff.