If you leave me in my house for three weeks with nothing to do, it’s only a matter of time before I start baking cupcakes for no reason.

This afternoon, I made these cheesecake-topped chocolate cupcakes (adapted from this recipe on Smitten Kitchen). But since my parents are both diabetic (along with a whole host of other obesity-related issues), I was looking for ways to make them more healthy edible for the ‘rents, so they didn’t just have to eat one and then stare longingly at an entire plateful of them.

I tried the whole “cake mix + a can of diet coke” trick today. I was pretty skeptical, especially because I’m not even a huge fan of baking from cake mix anyway. But they turned out pretty good! Really moist, if not as rich as the original kind with the whole half-cup of oil thing. And I substituted in Splenda for sugar in the cheesecake mix, too.

Verdict? Not as great as the original, but hey, diabetics can’t be choosers. Or something like that.

(The pan-fried dumplings were a gratuitous extra image.)