When I teach writing, I often start out by explaining the four stages of competence: unconscious incompetence, when you don’t know what you don’t know;
Conscious incompetence, when you realize how much you don’t know and how far you are from the goal;
Conscious competence, when you develop some skills, but boy, you still have to work at it; and
Unconscious competence–when you can do the thing, whatever it is, without having to think too much because the skill has become part of you.
Yesterday I decided to make floral cupcakes for a baby shower at our synagogue. I’ve been watching those “how to” demonstrations on Facebook and Youtube for weeks, and I had all the tools–dozens of piping tips, pastry bags, Russian tips, and a foolproof vanilla cupcake recipe. After watching all those videos, I thought, “How hard can it be?” Snort.
So I got up early and was baking cupcakes at 6:30 a.m. I made five dozen, and had them cooling by mid-morning. After grabbing a quick lunch, I spent an hour making a double batch of buttercream (recipe courtesy of ChatGPT), and then I mix the colors of the shower–rose gold, cream, and peach. And green for the leaves.
And then I sat down to start piping. Oy. The first bath immediately proved my unconscious incompetence. Those Facebook people had made it look so easy! But my icing “broke,” and the swirls wouldn’t stay together. I tried the Russian tips, and the icing was too soft, so they looked like sullen lumps. Then I tried hydrangeas, but one of the spikes of my tip wouldn’t produce icing, and the little stars came out like blobs. I made an entire platter of cupcakes, declared it a “practice plate,” and decided to take that to synagogue for the fellowship after the service.
Then I made another plate–more weird flowers. My husband’s church could have those. Finally, after much experimentation, I came up with three dozen that are a far cry from perfection, but they’re okay. But I’m good, because I was exhausted and I didn’t have time to reach conscious competence.
Maybe I should say I’m an artist–not into realism, but impressionism. Don’t you get an impression of roses from these?
Now I stand at a crossroad–do I keep practicing on cupcakes and letting my friends be my guinea pigs, or do I give up and stick to anything else? It took me an entire summer to learn how to do macarons–maybe this will be the Summer of Floral cupcakes. We’ll see.
My goal is one day to make a bouquet that looks like this.
One more thing before I go–dear friends, I have run out of things to say, so I am handing over this spot to Robin Pearson, who will no doubt bless your heart every first and third Monday. Thank you for reading my posts, and for sharing your hearts as well.
Until we meet on the page,
Angie
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