Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit/180 degrees Celsius.

Put sugar and walnut halves in food processor together and whirl till the walnuts are in fine

fragments and you have a sandy texture. Don’t overchop, you don’t want nut butter.

Transfer the mixture to a mixer and add the dry ingredients, i.e., the flour, baking soda and the

salt. Mix together.

Next dissolve your coffee granules in the boiling/hot water in a separate bowl. Let cool

somewhat. When very warm, add the vanilla, the buttermilk or soy milk, margarine/butter, and finally the eggs. Stir lightly and add all together to the dry  ingredients. There will be chunks of margarine still, that’s correct. Beat together till incorporated and smooth and scrape sides and bottom of mixer to make sure everything mixes properly together.

Pour the batter into two nine-inch round pans which you either oil and flour, spray with Baker’s Joy or spray with oil and place parchment rounds on. This will stick to your pans if you don’t and you won’t be able to turn them out properly. Why get aggravated?

Bake for 20 minutes or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean. Remove cakes from oven and let cool completely on wire racks.

For the frosting, dissolve the coffee in the hot water. Do this right in the dirty (from walnuts and sugar) processor, it’s fine. Just make sure your coffee granules melt. You can give it a pulse to help it along if need be. (You can also do this in a mixer, but why dirty another appliance?)

Next add the cubed margarine/butter and confectioners’ sugar. Use short pulses to combine. Scrape bottom and sides with a scraper/spatula to make sure all the margarine/butter incorporates and pulse again.

When cakes are fully cooled, turn out one on serving platter and thinly spread frosting on, then take second cake, place over first and thinly coat. Let set 10 to 15 minutes and frost with remaining frosting all over cake. Decorate top of cake with a few whole walnut halves.