Getting my sugar fix without spending money

So when all the storecupboard chocolate is gone (not entirely true, I still have half a bar of zotter chocolate plus a few squares of dark chocolate in my desk in work) and one has to think twice and three times about spending any money, how does one go about making sure there is something to satisfy the sugar cravings, not to mention preventing the credit card being broken out just because the stress of not being able to have it is too much (this, sadly, is not as much of a joke as it sounds and I know the reasons behind it, which took a lot of therapy to get to and which I am not going to go into in detail here).

Where was I?  Ah, yes.  Well, what one does, is bake.  I took out my fabulous cookies book and decided to do gingerbread cookies and then also do the brownie/chocolate sponge type mix as well so that not only would I have something sweet, I'd have something chocolatey.  And then realised I didn't have enough butter to do both.  No problem, I'll make half the amount of the chocolatey thing.  And then realised I don't have any baking powder.  No problem, I have baking soda and the internet tells me that 1 teaspoon of baking soda plus 2 tbsps of yoghurt will replace 1 teaspoon of baking powder.  I know I've tried baking soda on its own as a substitute before and it didn't work out too well so it seems worth a try.

When dividing the ingredients for the chocolate in half I manage to do it the whole way along until the last two ingredients.  So I put in the full 25g of cocoa powder and have already added two of the three eggs before I realise.  But they're fairly small eggs so I reckon two will be fine since it would have been hard to put in one and a half anyway.  It looks more or less like it usually looks so into the oven it goes.  And comes out extremely black looking.  It's not burnt, it's just really, really dark.  I think my chocolate cravings won't need to much of this to satisfy them.

I try the same baking soda and yoghurt mixture for the gingerbread cookies and the only other alteration I make to the recipe is adding some ginger as well as some cinnamon to the mix.  How can they call them gingerbread cookies if they haven't put ginger in them?  It's a mystery.  The book tells me to use two baking sheets and leave space for them to rise.  I don't make cookies very often and it's probably four years or so since the last time I did.  I decided that one big baking sheet will be more than enough and that a centimetre or two is plenty of room.  So now I have one baking sheet of slightly overcooked cookies which have sort of melted into one another.  And I've learned another rule of cookie-making.  Even though it's fun to finally use a few of those different cutters I have, the cookies should be about the same size in order to bake together properly.  The little ones are definitely quite crispy but I love that mushroom shape. 

So that's sweet snacks sorted for the week I think.