How to make
Smear 2 identical cake forms (10 1/4″ (26 cm) in diameter) with a little oil and sprinkle them with flour.
Sift the flour and cocoa into a bowl, add the sugar, baking powder, vanilla and baking soda.
In another bowl, put the eggs, oil and milk. Beat with a mixer until homogeneous.
Pour the egg mixture into the bowl with the flour, add the hot water and beat with the mixer until it's homogeneous and has no lumps.
Distribute this mixture evenly into the 2 cake forms and put them bake for about 30 min. in a preheated 360°F (180 °C) oven.
Take the baked cake layers out, leave them to cool a bit, remove from the forms and place on a metal cooking grid to cool well.
To make the cream, beat the softened butter with the sifted powdered sugar with a mixer until creamy, add in the cocoa, vanilla and pour in the milk a little bit at a time. Continue to beat until you get a fluffy buttercream.
Keep the thickness of the cream in mind and add as much milk as you feel necessary to get the thickness you want.
Assemble the cake: put a cake layer in a platter or cake stand, then half the cream, smooth it out and put the other cake layer on top. Cover the entire cake with the remaining cream, while smearing its sides as well.
The cake layers ended up very saturated and juicy, so I didn't syrup them. If you like, you can syrup them though.
Cover the sides of the cake with grated chocolate or chocolate sprinkles.
Notes: The recipe is adapted from hersheys.com. In the original recipe, the cake wasn't decorated so I hadn't originally intended on decorating it. But I felt it looked a bit boring just covered with cream so I simply added some chocolate bonbons and mint leaves on top.
