Every cook burned something on the way to good. The smoke alarm is part of the curriculum.

Ruining things is one of the required steps, not a departure from the plan. Nobody learns heat, timing or how much is too much from reading about it. They learn it from the batch that came out black, and that batch cannot be skipped. The failures are expensive the first time and cheap after that.

Go and get one of yours over with this week. Cook the ambitious thing, enter the competition you are not ready for, try the harder route. Keep the mistake small enough to afford, and tell somebody about it afterwards instead of hiding it.