Beat butter and castor sugar till soft and creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

In a separate bowl, sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt 3 times. Fold in the sifted ingredients into the creamed mixture alternately with milk, starting and ending with flour.

Finally add vanilla essence and combine well.

Pour the batter into three well greased and floured 5-inches round cake tins. Level the tops and bake the cakes for 40 to 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center of the cakes come out without any wet batter.

Chop the chocolate into small pieces. Place the chopped chocolate in a heat proof bowl over a pan of hot water. Let the chocolate melt over the hot steam. Stir occasionally.

Once the chocolate is almost melted, add the butter. Remove from heat and stir until all chocolate and butter is melted and combined.

Next, sift the icing sugar to remove any lumps. Add it to the chocolate icing mixture and beat well.

If the icing is too dry, add a bit more butter.

Once the cakes have cooled down, level the top.

Fill each layer with a thin layer of the chocolate icing and stack the cakes. Remember to make sure the cakes are stacked upright in as straight a line as possible.

Once the cakes are all stacked, cover the rest of the cake with the remaining frosting. You can start with the sides and then the top. At this stage, the frosting need not be smooth, suffice if it is evenly coated.

Next, using the back of a teaspoon, create a small dent on the cake. To do this, press the back of the spoon lightly into the icing (not too hard as we don't want to scrap it off the cake) and then scoop it upwards, moving the spoon away from the cake.

Continue with the rest of the cake until the whole cake is filled with 'dents' and 'spikes'. Once you get the hang of it, this should be quite fast to do it.

Once that is done, your cake is pretty much done. Next is the decoration. I decorated my cake with the royal icing flowers. Place the flowers on the cake and complete the cake decoration with some buttercream leaves.