Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4.

Line three 8 inch, lose bottomed cake tins with grease proof paper and place to one side.

Before you begin to make the cake you have to embark on the tricky task of removing the seeds from the pods. You can either do this by squashing the cardamom pod with the flat side of a large knife, or alternatively cut the pods open and scoop out the seeds. You then need to grind the seeds into a fine powder.

Next cream together the butter and the sugar. Make sure you do this thoroughly and wait for the mixture to turn a much paler, creamier yellow.

Whisk the eggs up and slowly add them to the butter and sugar mix, only a little bit at a time. Whisking the mixture together thoroughly in between each addition. If you add too much too quickly the mixture may curdle but don't panic! Keep whisking, if that doesn't help a pinch of flour should do the trick!

Next sift the flour, salt and the cardamom powder into your bowl! Fold the mixture until thoroughly combined.

Divide the cake mix into three bowls. Tint one bowl dark pink using 3 or 4 drops of the food dye and another bowl light pink with just one drop of food dye. Leave the remaining cake batter pale yellow.

Spoon the batter into the three separate tins and place in the centre of your oven for 25 minutes.

Once they are golden, springy to the touch and a skewer comes away clean, pop on a cooling rack to cool.

Whisk the butter until it is soft, add the rose essence, and then start adding the icing sugar.

When you have a soft buttercream formed melt your white chocolate allow to cool until warm then pour into the butter cream and whisk!

Again, split the icing into three bowls, tinting one bowl dark pink, one light pink and leaving the remaining icing pale yellow.

Place the cake onto a cake board and sandwich all three layers together with 1/3 of the pale yellow icing reserving some for the top of the cake. Place the dark pink icing into an icing bag and pipe around the bottom half of the cake.

Place the light pink icing into an icing bag and pipe around the top half of the cake leaving roughly 1 cm of the sides clear.

Finally, spoon the pale yellow icing on to the top of the cake and gently encourage down the sides to meet the light pink icing.

Next, taking a small spatula and starting at the bottom of the cake, smooth the icing and work upward in a spiral motion so that the dark pink fades to light pink and the light pink fade to pale yellow.

As you reach the top of the cake, create a swirl pattern moving towards the centre of the cake.

Finish by topping with a handful of candied rose petals.