So you’re at your office job and have a sudden urge for sweets. You could walk down to the nearest vending machine and grab a Snickers. Or, with some creative flair, you could whip up your own faux French delicacy. Welcome to vending machine cuisine 101.

Here’s how class goes: Look at the recipes, buy what you need and follow along. You can eat your projects in the end – if you can stand to destroy their beauty.

To refine our vending machine genius, we got some help from Sally Barclay, coordinator for the nutrition clinic for employee wellness at Iowa State. Although she didn’t promote this kind of cooking, she said she could see how it could be fun for students – and your stomach, of course.

The first item featured in this revolutionary endeavor is Chocolate Mousse Surprise.

Chocolate Mousse Surprise

Ingredients:

1 bag of Famous Amos bite-sized chocolate chip cookies

1 Dove milk chocolate bar

1 3 Musketeers bar

Cost: $2.50

Prep time: 6 to 8 minutes

Instructions:

1. Separate the outer layer of the 3 Musketeers bar from the whipped chocolate using a butter knife. Be sure to save both components.

2. Sandwich the mousse in between each pair of cookies.

3. Crumble up what used to be the outer layer of the candy bar and sprinkle on the cookie

sandwiches.

4. Melt the Dove chocolate bar. Pay attention; you don’t want to burn it. This should only take about one minute, but check it a little before that just to be safe. Add a little water and stir.

5. Pour the chocolate syrup on top.

6. Bon appetit!

Mini-Doughnut Melt

Ingredients:

1 bag of powdered mini-doughnuts

1 Dove dark chocolate bar

1 Kit Kat wafer crunch bar

Cost: $2.50

Prep time: 4 to 5 minutes

Instructions:

1. Cut mini-doughnuts in half .

2. Melt the Dove chocolate bar for one minute, but don’t add water this time.

3. Using a butter knife, slap a significant amount of chocolate in between the donut halves.

4. Crumble up as much of the Kit Kat bar as is necessary to put in the center of each doughnut. You can save some of the bar for the next recipe or just eat it.

5. Look at your creations admiringly.

6. Enjoy.

Cookie Chocolate Mountain

Last in line is Cookie Chocolate Mountain. It’s small enough that you can make more than one and still have some animal crackers and Kit Kat to spare, but it’s complicated enough that you might just want to look at the picture, gasp in awe and call it good. But hey, if you’re up for the challenge, go for it.

Ingredients:

1 bag of animal crackers

1 Kit Kat wafer crunch bar

1 Dove dark chocolate bar

1 HEATH toffee bar

Cost: $3.25

Prep time: 10 to 15 minutes

Instructions:

1. Melt the Dove chocolate bar. Add a little water.

2. Crumble a handful of the animal crackers to a fine dust. Mix about half of the chocolate syrup with some of the cookie dust to create a paste (save some of the crumbs for putting on top).

3. Place a clump of the paste (not all of it) on a plate in a circle about 2 inches across.

4. Break some more animal crackers, but this time just break them in half. Stick some of the broken-up animal crackers flat on the paste circle.

5. Place a smaller clump of the paste on top of this.

6. Cut the HEATH bar in half, then cut this half in small chunks.

7. Dip the HEATH bar chunks in the melted Dove chocolate (not in the chocolate/cracker paste) and place on top as a third layer.

8. Place more broken-up animal crackers in a circle around the HEATH pieces upright, using more chocolate to make it stick if necessary.

9. Add more water to the rest of the melted chocolate. Pour on top.

10. Cut 2 quarter-inch slices of the Kit Kat bar and separate the individual wafer pieces from the chocolate. Stick the wafer pieces around the bottom circumference.

11. Pour the rest of the animal crackers crumbs on top.

12. Pat yourself on the back, show your friends, take home movies of the masterpiece and dig in.