Heat oven to 350.
Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans. Then put a piece of round parchment paper over the greased, floured bottom and spray the top of the parchment paper with cooking spray. (The parchment paper won't stick to the bottom of the cake pan when you invert the pan to remove the cake and the paper is easily pulled off the cake.)
Combine the 2 cups sugar, 1 3/4 c flour, 3/4 cups cocoa, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, and 1 1/2 tsp baking soda in a large mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer.
Add the 2 eggs, 1 cup milk, 1/2 cup oil, and 2 tsp. vanilla extract and beat on medium for 2 minutes.
Stir in the 1 cup boiling water. The batter will be very thin.
Pour half of the batter into each prepared cake pan.
Bake 30 - 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Cool 10 minutes then remove the cakes onto wire racks.
Cool completely on the wire racks before frosting the cakes. This will take more than an hour. Don't put frosting on a warm cake. The cake will crumble and break and the frosting will be dotted with bits of cake. You will never get the icing smooth. Also, a warm cake will soften/melt the frosting. You can speed the cooling process slightly by putting the cake in the refrigerator.