I like to do the cookie thing, but I bake them all first, then freeze them. They reheat just fine with a quick zap of the microwave and I don't have to turn the oven back on!

I make a batch, keep one for myself and give the rest away to my friends, which they really appreciate.

I like to make (or buy) sweet things, eat a few, and then dart off for some errands. It sometimes works. Sometimes I just think about the cookies and return home to eat them all.

I did buy a huge pack of Starbursts the other day to start a "candy bowl," but I found myself sitting down at the table, bowl in front, and just eating all Starbursts.

This is the same with groceries-- I can buy a six pack of mini-challahs, and I'll devour them in one sitting. So I only grocery shop when I need to cook.

I sometimes wonder how I am not 300 pounds.

I do all of the above! Except, frozen brownies are delicious that isn't the best prevention, but at least being behind the freezer door makes them a little easier to forget about.

I definitely can't keep homemade cookies and brownies around! Instead, I try to keep a bar of really dark chocolate on hand. Just a little square of it satisfies my sweet tooth most of the time. Plus, it's actually pretty healthy!

My main strategy is to just restrict baking sweets to times when I know there will be others to feed! Brunch is a pretty good excuse...actually, people appreciate baked goods at pretty much any random get-together. It's more fun to cook for others anyway, I'm not as interested in making a cake for myself.

This is exactly why I don't keep any snack type items in our house. Sweet or savory, they would be gone in a flash. A bowl of blueberries on the counter rarely lasts a day!

I don't have much of a sweet tooth, but I (1) love to bake and (2) will not be able to stop myself from constantly "tasting" the results. To avoid cake and cookie overload, I definitely give it away to eager friends. The only trouble comes when some friends refuse to accept homemade baked goods. That's just not right!

Yeah, if I bake cookies I freeze 3/4 of them. It helps me resist the temptation to eat them, and it ensures that I have a lovely dessert option when packing lunch - for days and days!

With things that are less convenient to freeze, like cakes and pies, I tend to bake those only when I know I'll have guests. My neighbors across the hall are also good giftees. :)

Most of the time I just keep a bar of good chocolate around, but when I need something more, I try to pick a recipe that I can make a "healthier" version of -- swapping whole wheat flour for white flour, dark chocolate for semi-sweet, reducing quantities of butter/sugar. That way I can indulge without feeling too bad about it. :)

This is a case where home-baking might not make sense. Might be best to just go out and buy a $3 slice of cheesecake or couple of cookies from the local bakery. Benefits: 1) you get portion control, 2) you save money on all those ingredients (have you ever added it up?!), 3) you save time. It's just not realistic to constantly feed my neighbors or office or friends with my "leftovers" when I bake a batch of cookies to satisfy my craving; I'm spending loads of money on ingredients and taking lots of time for, what, a few cookies for me? Makes a LOT more sense to pick up a treat at the co-op or bakery.

I love to bake and have a serious sweet tooth so I've had to impose a rule on myself that I only bake when I host or am going to an event. Otherwise, I'd devour a batch of brownies, cookies or a whole cake in a day or two by myself.

I've also been using whole wheat flower more in my baking to make it slightly less indulgent. I've had great results with banana bread, whole wheat shortbread and chocolate chip cookies.

With a small family, I'm almost always dividing cookie and muffin recipes in half so that I have a little less to start with. Since I love to bake, I can do it a bit more often and have things fresh. But I'm also learning to use my freezer a bit more. Plus, sharing is always nice.

My boyfriend likes to have something sweet in the house to snack on, so I try to use this as an opportunity to feed him something healthy. I'll make bar cookies or granola bars with nuts, my homemade low-sugar jam, oats, and wheat flour, then cut them up and wrap in plastic so he can bring one or two to work with him. It helps him to stay away from the vending machine and gives him a little nutritious boost in the afternoon. I don't cook anything junky (frosted, super-sweet, or super-rich) unless I'm taking it to a party.

It helped me tremendously to cut down on temptation by over-romanticizing that one Perfect version of something, put it high and nearly out of reach on an imaginary pedestal, that way I don't succumb to ordinary cheesecake when only my homemade Meyer lemon version with a biscotti crust would genuinely satisfy my craving for cheesecake (and now I make that only once or twice a year for group/holiday gatherings). No reason why I'd want just any chocolate chip cookie when I know the frozen dough in my own freezer has just the right percentage of ingredients and results in the kind of chocolate chip cookie that makes my knees week. And knowing I have frozen cookie dough in the freezer isn't the temptation one might think it would be because I've become really adept at distracting myself with non-food options when I'm having the "To Bake Or Not To Bake" debate. I'll only eat lemon tart when I can get my perfect version of it, at Tartine in SF, so I make plans to meet a friend there 2-3x a year and get one of their mini's. I love old-fashioned American-style chocolate pudding, and make a great one, but I've decided that something close enough yet even more sublime - chocolate/butterscotch pot de creme at Town Hall in SF - is the only one for me so I get that now maybe 1-2x in an entire year.

The only ready-to-eat snacks in my house are oranges, apples, nuts (but even with those I can't have cashews or sunflower-seeds-in-shell in the house!) and granola.

I look at it this way... at least I've never overindulged on those and woken up with chocolate pudding face.

I struggle with this all the time - I like to have something sweet after a meal but never want to overload. I keep a glass jar of Hershey's kisses around just for that - perfect way to have some chocolate without overdoing it.

But here's my big conundrum. I love to bake and often do so as a stress reliever. but I never know how to cut my recipes down for smaller portions (specifically for boxed mixes). Halving it is easy, but what about when I just want a few cupcakes and not a dozen? I'm not working right now and it's often tricky to pass them off to my friends during the week because of everyone's busy schedules. Any advice?

My best trick is to bring extras to the office. I looooove baking, and would do it all the time if I wasn't worried I'd eat most of it. I'm trying really hard to lose some weight, though, so haven't been making any sweets lately (kind of sad!) and I think my coworkers miss it! But I once brought in a plate of whoopie pies (probably 10 or so), and they were gone before 9am - in an office of 5 people!

I love baking - it's my therapy - but my husband doesn't like sweets. I share my baked good with my husband's family and my coworkers. Everybody loves their weekly sweet share! :D

@decogirl- I don't know about the bakeries where you live, but buying a slice of cheesecake around here is the opposite of portion control. If I make a 6" cake for myself and have two slices (1/4 of the cake, total), I'd still be better off than getting one piece from a bakery.

Self control is usually enough of a deterrent for me, but I send leftovers to work with my wife so that people get to enjoy things before they would go stale around here.

See, when I portion out the dough and freeze it- I just end up eating the frozen dough... often with hours of finishing the cookies. Better to only bake when I know I'll have guest to give it to. My willpower works much better before I get out my mixer.

I like the freezing idea. I've brought extras to the office many times and it's just a headache. Either people start making demands on what you make next, or everybody is on a diet, or somebody takes the whole pan home and starts a fight. Totally not worth the hassle.

I rarely bake because of this very danger. I tend to do my little indulgences freely, but in situations where I just can't eat more than one or two bites. If I'm really having a craving, I'll pick up something from a good bakery or one or two salted caramels and then it's done; no leftovers.

But those times I do bake, I send the leftovers home with guests or my husband takes them into his office the next day. (Though there WAS that time he ate leftover cupcakes on the way into work while he was driving....)

@Rucy - I am totally on board with you on the quality issue. This is why I can usually skip dessert at restaurants or at parties or eat just a few bites of what other people make because frankly, it's usually not as good.

At home though I only make the good stuff. The boyfriend and I are terrible even with fresh-baked bread. We can go through an entire loaf of fresh bread in one day. Even Nutella is not safe from the occasional spoon-snack in our house. I'm going to make banana bread tonight and the two of us will probably finish a whole loaf by tomorrow night. It's bad.

I don't even make cookies anymore, except for at Christmas for this very reason. The boy is even worse than I am. I'm okay having just one or two cookies or a thin slice of cake or a very small bowl of ice cream, but he can't control himself. We both have problems with frequency consumption, meaning we keep going back for little bites throughout the day.

We do really, REALLY love cake though. And bread pudding. Pie and cookies just don't compare. Ice cream comes close though.

I do try to base desserts mainly on fruit (fresh strawberries macerated in sugar with heavy cream? Heaven in a bowl) or put fruit in cakes and bread puddings. So at least I get a LITTLE nutrition with my sugar. Lol.

I have really been into mug cakes lately.

I make a batch of cookies or make a whole cake/pie, keep a few cookies or a slice for myself and bring the rest to work. My office quickly ravages anything I bring in and I still manage to satisfy my sweet craving.

I have a cookbook called "Small Batch Baking" by Debby Nakos that I'll occasionally turn to when I'm in the mood to bake but don't want the temptation of leftovers. I haven't tried a lot of the recipes (there's one for baklava that seems like a lot of work for 2 servings) but it's fun make one or two big oatmeal cookies, or teeny fruit cobblers, or an itty bitty pound cake every now and then.

"Know Thyself": turns out I'm a bit 'all or nothing' person. I don't want sweets or treats if they're not in the house, but if I make/buy cookies-cakes-crisps, I eat the whole thing in one go.

So I try to only have 2 muffins max and give the rest to colleagues and flatmates. They rarely complain. :)

...'preferably the ones with several large teenage sons at home' -agree!! and I giggled.

Cayenne!

Seriously. Just a little in a dish (esp chocolate) ups the flavor, but makes it impossible to eat several as the heat builds with each bite.

Why not just bake what you want? Simple math will help you break down a recipe as much as you can. Bake a few cookies/small cake and have it be that. It'll take effort, and so you won't do it all the time, and if you're looking to stay away from indulgences then all you need to do is only eat sweets baked yourself at home. Ta Da!

Use a toaster oven to create mini versions of your favorites. It's a sort of "forced" portion control and you have smaller dishes to wash.
Years ago, when I bought my first toaster oven it came with an offer for a toaster oven baking set and I am so happy that I took advantage of it.
Bed Bath and Beyond is an excellent source for toaster oven baking dishes, sheets, etc.
Just a month ago, I scored a toaster oven sized Silpat mat at Williams Sonoma. I literally squealed with delight when I saw it and then squealed more when I learned that it was on clearance.

As several have noted, rescaling recipes is fairly easy, especially if you use online resizers (e.g., Recipe Resizer). Scaling up or down doesn't always work perfectly, so sometimes you have to play around to get the consistency right, but I've never really had major difficulties (with the exception of bread baking).

Freezing doughs and fully cooked products is probably more efficient, but going through the process of measuring, mixing, and baking, and then having a fresh product, for me, is worth the extra effort. Plus, if you're someone who likes to experiment with different recipes, not having to work your way through of several dozen of something before trying something new is a boon.