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

In another 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.

Pour the batter into two well greased and floured 8 inches round cake tins. Level the top and bake the cakes for 45 to 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center of the cakes come out without any wet batter.

Remove the cake from oven, let them rest for a few minutes and then turn them out onto wire racks to cool completely.

Once the cakes have cooled down completely, level the cakes and fill the layers with buttercream. Cover the entire cake with a thin coat of buttercream as the crumb coat.

Next, cover the whole cake with white fondant. Shape the edges sharp with fondant smoothers.

Use your cake tin to trace a circle in the same size as the cake tin diameter on a piece of parchment paper. Next, draw a hexagon shape on a separate piece of paper. Make sure the hexagon is not too big or too small. Cut the hexagon out following its outline.

Place the hexagon in the centre of your round template and trace it out.

Next, draw out straight lines from each of the 5 corners of the hexagons. Make sure the length of each line is consistent.

Place the hexagon templates at the end of the lines (with the tip of the hexagon placed right at the end of the line). Draw out the hexagon.

Repeat the process for all the lines.

Finally, connect the sides of each of the hexagon lines with one another.

If drawing the image is too complicated for you, you can always print an image off the internet. Simply resize it to ensure it fits perfectly onto the top of your cake.

To trace the football design onto the cake, cut the football template prepared earlier following its outer outline.

Place the template on the fondant covered cake, and using a sugarcraft knife, cut along each line on the template.

The idea is to mark the lines on the fondant and not cut the fondant through, so only apply light pressure when cutting marking the lines on the fondant.

Fill black royal icing into a piping bag fitted with round tip #3. Pipe out all the outlines of the football.

Next, fill up the center hexagon with black icing in a circular motion. Do not thin the royal icing, but using it is the same thick consistency so that the texture of the piped circular lines are visible. Continue with the remaining 5 hexagons.

Once done, fill the rest of the empty hexagons with white royal icing, also in a circular motion following the shape of the hexagons.

Fill green royal icing into a piping bag fitted with same round tip #3. Pipe random zig-zag patterns all around the sides, letting some of the icing extend up to the sides of the football for a natural ‘football in the grass’ effect.