Chocolate Snowball Cake

Note from Cheri: This cake reminds me of a sophisticated version of those pink chocolate snowball snack cakes most of us ate as kids. Baking the cake in heart shaped cake pans makes it a perfect Valentine's Day Gift, but you can make it round pans as well, or even as one double layer cake, instead of two single layers. The cake is simple to make, using only one bowl to mix!

2 C flour 1 C sugar 3/4 C brown sugar 3/4 C unsweetened cocoa 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. salt 1 1/2 C milk 2 eggs 1/2 C butter, softened 2 1/2 tsp. vanilla 1 recipe 7 Minute Icing (follow link for recipe) 1 1/3 C shredded coconut, tinted pink (follow link for directions)

Preheat oven to 350° F and grease and flour two 8" - 9" round or heart shaped cake pans. Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Make a well in center of dry ingredients, add remaining ingredients and mix at low speed until completely moistened. Increase speed and beat at high speed for about 3 minutes. Divide batter between the pans and bake for about 30 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks for about 5 minutes, before inverting onto wire racks to cool completely. After cakes have cooled, frost with 7 Layer Icing, and press tinted coconut on top and sides. Hint: To keep the cake plate clean while applying the icing and coconut, overlap to pieces of waxed paper, by about a third, in the center of the cake plate. Frost cake and apply coconut, then gently pull out the two pieces of paper and you have a finished cake and a clean cake plate!