I recently made these cupcakes for an event at work.

http://www.duncanhines.com/recipes/cupcakes/dh/caramel-apple-cupcakes

Obviously, these cupcakes are made using a Duncan Hines Spice Cake mix with applesauce and altered ingredients, from the basic spice cake recipe.

They were a hit! However, I'm moving from cake mix baking to from scratch baking, and I wanted to develop an apple spice cupcake recipe from scratch that would be similar to this one.

So my question is:

a) Has anyone ever used a Duncan Hines spice cake mix AND know of a from-scratch recipe with a similar taste?

or


b) What is your favorite spice cake recipe, if you'd care to share?

Thanks so much in advance!