Coconutty Chocolate cake with Walnut Topping

This is the first chocolate cake I baked after long time. Recently my daughter and her friends threw a send-off party for one of their friend. My daughter wanted me to bake a cake for 30 people. After a half day of thought, I decided to make a chocolate cake. What else can please 30 teenagers than a chocolate cake? Fortunately, I had cocoa powder and all the other ingredients at home, so I went to Hershey's site and tried this recipe.

This is very easy recipe and the outcome was yummy. I added dessicated coconut in it and added crushed walnuts for toppings to give it a crunchy texture. I was quite tensed, but everyone along with my daughter liked the cake very much..

Ingredients :

Cocoa Powder : 3/4 cup
Dessicated coconut : 1 cup
Boiling water : 1 cup
Butter or margarine(room temperature) : 1/2 cup (1 stick)
Sugar : 2 cups
Eggs : 3
Vanilla extract : 1 tsp.
All-purpose flour : 1-3/4 cups
Baking soda : 1tsp.
Baking powder : 1 tsp.
Salt : 1/2 tsp.
Milk : 3/4 cup
Walnuts : 3/4 cup(coarsely chopped)

Method:

• Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 2 9-inch round baking pans. Grease whole inner side of the pan with melted butter and sprinkle flour all over it. Set aside.
• Mix cocoa with boiling water in small bowl; stir until smooth. Set aside to cool.
• Beat butter and sugar in large bowl until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in vanilla. Gradually add cocoa mixture, beating well.
• Stir together flour, dessicated coconut, baking soda, baking powder and salt in another bowl; add flour mixture slowly in the butter mixture, blend with little milk until you used the whole flour mixture. Beat until well blended. 
• Pour batter into prepared pans. decorate with coarsely chopped walnuts.
• Bake about 55-60 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center of the cake comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. 
• You can also frost the cake if you want, in that case don't use walnut topping. You can decorate with walnuts after you frost. I didn't do the frosting.

Sending this cake to  

• Srav's Cooking Concept - Holiday Baking event,
•  Srivalli's Kid's Delight - Deceptively Delicious, hosted this month by Pavani of Cook's Hideout 
• Julie's Christmas Delicacy event
• Vardhini's Bake Fest#1