Home-Made Vitamuffin?

I've been buying vitatops for a while now, but with having to trim down our budget, it's become an expensive habit. 

I would love to make a muffin at home that comes close to what they are and still tastes good.  LOL 

The stats (the ones I'm concerned with anyway) are 100 calories, 5 grams fiber, 5 grams protein.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Here is a copycat recipe for the deep chocolate flavor. which flavor do you like best??

 

 

Thanks!!  That looks like it's worth a try!  I have the chocolate ones for a treat, but what I really want is a muffin for breakfast.  I've been eating the banana nut ones mostly.

http://caloriecount.about.com/full-meal-muffi ns-vegan-lunch-recipe-r175441

these are similar, not the same though. Maybe try adding bran for extra fiber and anything else that you might like.

I'm not familiar with vitatops, but when I try to improve on the nutrition in muffin  recipes, I usually swap out oil with yogurt (even fat-free works fine, but then I usually leave in 1 Tbs or so of oil, as I think it helps the texture). I've also used almond meal instead of some of the flour - it adds fat, but also some sweetness and some extra protein. I'll reduce the sugar by about 1/4 to 1/3 of the original (especially for muffins that have some pureed fruit in them, or have a sweet spice, like cinnamon or vanilla, that I can increase slightly). I don't use artificial sweeteners in baked goods - I don't like them. You can add wheat germ instead of some flour, too.

I've also played around with replacing some flour in a recipe with whey protein, but that was for a cobbler topping, so rising action wasn't necessary. One of these days I'll see how it works in muffins or cookies - my guess is that it'll be okay (but not great) as long as there's still 3/4 or so of the original flour content.

Also, if you're making banana anything, the riper the banana, the better. Black spots on the peel are great (just cut off any black spots on the fruit itself). It's honestly not worth it to make banana bread/muffins with slightly underripe to just ripe bananas, as they just won't lend much flavor to your baked good.

I've been making black bean brownies.  They're about the same, significantly healthier than a regular brownie, significantly cheaper than vita muffins.  Add some orange zest and blue berries and they're fantastic.

I make an pumpkin oatmeal "cookie" that tastes like the vitatops.  

• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup splenda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 egg whites
• 1 cup solid pack pumpkin puree
• 2 1/4 cups oatmeal
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup fresh cranberries (you can also use craisins, but you won't need a full cup)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon nutmeg(this can be a bit much, so I usually do a mix of nutmeg & pumpkin pie spice)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets.
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla, egg and pumpkin. Add the oatmeal, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg and cinnamon; stir into mixture until well blended. Cut the cranberries in half and stir into mixture.  Use an ice cream scoop to drop cookies on sheet.
3. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.

This usually ends up being around 50 calories a cookie.  It's a soft cookie, so that's why I compare them to a vitatop.  I've played with this recipe a lot.  I currently have blueberry ones in the fridge.  I do recommend cutting back on the spices if you are adding a different fruit.   These really are wonderful and I always have some on hand for either a dessert or a quick snack to hold me over.