Fall harvest spice cake

---------- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.05
  
       Title: Fall Harvest Spice Cake
  Categories: Cakes, Chocolate
       Yield: 12 servings
  
       1 pk Spice or carrot cake mix
       1 c  Water
       3    Eggs
     1/3 c  Vegetable oil
     1/3 c  Apple butter
            Maple buttercream frosting:
       4 tb Margarine; softened
     1/4 c  Maple syrup
       3 c  Powdered sugar
       2 c  Walnuts; coarsley chopped
     1/4 c  Chocolate chips
     1/4 c  Almonds
       2 tb Dried apricots; chopped
       2 tb Dried cranberries; chopped
       2 tb Raisins
  
   1.  Preheat oven to 375*.  Grease and flour two 9 inch
   round baking pans.
   2.  Combine cake mix, water, eggs, oil and apple butter in
   medium bowl. Beat on low speed of electric mixer until
   blended; beat at medium speed 2 minutes.
   Pour batter into prepared pans.
   3.  Bake 35 to 40 minutes until wooden toothpick inserted
   into center comes out clean.  Let cool in pans on wire rack
   for 10 minutes.  Remove to rack;s cool completely.
   4.  Prepare Maple Butter cream frosting by beating
   margarine and syrup in a small bowl until blended.
   Gradually beat in powdered sugar until smooth.
   5.  Place 1 cake layer on serving plate; frost top with
   Maple buttercream. Top with second layer; frost topa nd
   side of cake with frosting. Press walnuts into side of cake.
   6.  Pipe chocolate onto cake to form a tree trunk. Combine
   almonds, apricots, cranberries and raisins. Sprinkle on top
   of cake to form leaves.
   **If dried cranberries are unavailable use additional
   chopped dried apricots and raisins.
  
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