Me and those cakes

I love layered cakes. However I su** at making them. I have no idea what I do wrong. I ALWAYS do as the recipe tells me to and they are still not working for me. This following recipe being another example for that.

Classic chocolate cake with vanilla frosting
(recipe from Sweetpaul)
Ingredients:
Dough
240g salted butter
150g brown sugar
50g sugar
1 egg
240ml milk
1 tsp. vanilla
180g flour
1 tsp. backing powder
30g cocoa powder

Frosting
340g sugar
3 egg whites
80ml water
2 tsp. corn sirup
1/4 tsp backing powder
1 tsp vanilla

Prepare:
1. Preheat oven to 190°C.
2. Beat the butter and both types of sugar in a bowl and beat until frothy.
3. Add the egg and mix well.
4. Add milk, vanilla, flour, backing powder and the cocoa powder and again mix well until you have an even dough.
5. Divide the dough equally into two baking forms. (I weighed the dough and the half the weigh into each form.)
6. Bake for about 35 minutes or until a wooden stick comes out clean. Let the cakes cool off afterwards.
7. For the frosting you have to mix the sugar, egg whites, water, corn sirup and backing powder in a metal bowl (because you have to put it onto a water pot.)
8. Put the bowl onto the pot with water in it.
9. You have to mix the mixture well until thick and creamy.
10. Take the bowl from the pan and the vanilla. Then you have to beat the frosting until it cooled off completely. It's supposed to be fluffy.
11. Put one of the cakes onto a cake display and add 1/3 of the frosting and spread evenly. 
12. Put the second cake on top of the first and frosting and put the rest of the frosting on top and on the sides.
13. Add some sprinkles if you like.
14. The cake is supposed to cool off for an hour in the fridge before you serve it.
ENJOY!!

Now this recipe doesn't sound too hard, right? But somehow the cakes didn't went up in the oven and I got some really flat cakes. (First I thought everything vanished into thin air while baking. But when I took them out I could find the really thin cakes!:P) And then the frosting didn't go as planned. I had to add the baking form again because the frosting was leaving the scene...:/ (Even after letting it cool off in the fridge it kept running away...)
I don't know what it is with me and layered cakes. I guess I have to try until one of the recipes I use will be successful! AND I will try this recipe again!!! This has to work!;)

But the you know what?! THE CAKE TASTED AWESOME! So rich of chocolate and very soft and wet on the inside. Really really yummy!:)

Better...

...than I thought went my challenge with no buying crappy food. I was so sick of buying food for a lot of money and not tasting good. So almost every day I packed a lot of food for during the day. Which was harder than I thought because I had to think of so many different things for a whole day. So here is an example of some things I brought for one day:

Some carrots for in between meals and something healthy. Some sandwiches as lunch and some sweets, so I don't have to buy any candy at the canteen. 

Once I had packed different things to eat it was really easy to ignore the stuff at the mensa. So really the hardest part was to know in the morning what I wanted to eat in the afternoon. I also had to think about the bag I wanted to use. Because if you bring along class stuff, a laptop, something to drink, food and a book (for time going and coming from university) you'll need a bigger bag!;) But it is really worth it. I got to decide what to eat and when. And you know what? The best part of it all is that you don't crave so much sweets if you have them with you and treat yourself one at a time....

ENOUGH

I have enough of buying stuff at a bakery, cafe or somewhere quite expensive and then not tasting good. That is why I want to try not to buy any of those not so good snacks for my body/expensive snacks for 15 days. I wanted to do it for a month but I guess I will be lucky if I can stick to it for 15 days!;) If it is going good than I might go for the whole month but we'll see.

It all started when I ate at the university canteen(mensa) in Hamburg for a couple of days and ending up with food that didn't taste too good. It was weird. The simplest things like spaghetti or potatoes just don't taste like that but rather like something completely different. I have no idea how they do that! So now I will only buy salads (which you can put together for yourself) at the mensa. And also try to avoid the sweet shelves as not to buy any of those overpriced sweets. 

As for going out or doing some more sightseeing I want to bring my own treats...that way I can buy a  big pack at a big grocery store, therefore save money and decide what I want and not just buying anything because you see it in a display (while shopping or so) and think it says: BUY ME!

So I hope it goes well. For today, the first day, it's going well so far. I am at university all day and ate something from the vegetable counter and the salad bar. The price was really good and it tasted much better than the food I had at the mensa recently. 

The Challenge is On!!;)