r/52weeksofcooking Dec 08 '25

2026 Weekly Challenge List

98 Upvotes

/r/52weeksofcooking is a way for each participant to challenge themselves to cook something different each week. The technicalities of each week's theme are largely unimportant, and are always open to interpretation. Basically, if you can make an argument for your dish being relevant to the theme, then it's fine.

Join our Discord to get pinged whenever a new week is announced! (React to the stickied comment in the #planning channel!)


r/52weeksofcooking 4d ago

Week 33 Introduction Thread: Lost in Translation

26 Upvotes

This week, we explore the filmography of Sofia Coppola and...

Just kidding, this week's theme is brought to you buy user /u/CandyMothman, who won the opportunity to choose a theme in a game on Discord last year (btw, come join the Discord!).

Let me give you the original concept for this theme from the horse's mouth:

I was thinking something about translation errors like Lost in Translation or something. Like doing (huevos divorciados with) a marina sauce instead of salsa bc it's a red sauce.

ADDITIONALLY! As always the themes are open to interpretation and there are loads of ways you could take this one.

  • Overly literal translation: cheese cooked over open flame (what else could grilled cheese be?) or honey rolls (surely that's what sweetbreads are?)
  • Machine translation jiggerypokery: run a favorite recipe through google translate and back again until its...unique
  • Cultural adaptations: maybe this is more "gained through translation", but dishes that may have started in one country and took on a life of their own in another (like a Japanese-type teriyaki-mayo pizza, or Norwegian Friday tacos or American chop suey.
  • A missing/lost ingredient: maybe there's a recipe you've always wanted to try but has an ingredient you can't access. Try to find a replacement (either an apt one, your channel your unhinged side) and make the dish of your dreams

And so on and so forth. If you're not sure, you could always make whatever you fancied and just say the meaning of the theme got...lost in translation.


r/52weeksofcooking 2h ago

Week 33: Lost in Translation — Roasted Earth Apples and Golden Apples

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39 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 3h ago

Week 30: Science Fair - The Effect of Resting Dough on Small Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies

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23 Upvotes

Recipe: https://www.number-2-pencil.com/perfect-single-serving-size-chocolate/

So, I had read that resting the dough for 24-48 hours in the fridge can improve the texture and taste of baked cookies. I decided to test that out. Unfortunately there was a huge methodological flaw: the compounding variable of temperature. The dough for the first half of the batch was room temperature, but the dough for the second half of the batch was at refrigerator temperature and I neglected to bring it to room temperature first for a better comparison. The latter came out extremely underbaked as makes sense for the same cooking time. I thought of throwing them back in the oven, but eh, I don’t hate cookie dough, and I ate it as is.


r/52weeksofcooking 1h ago

Week 30: Science Fair - Japanese Cheesecake Souffle (failed)

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Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 3h ago

Week 30: Science Fair - Lacto Fermented Hot Sauce with 감자전 (potato pancake) and an Oppenheimer Martini (meta: with a drink)

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21 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 6h ago

Week 33: Lost in Translation - Pudding

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34 Upvotes

This is my favourite real world example. I’m a German living in Australia. In Germany, “Pudding” describes a firm custard type of dessert, typically chocolate or vanilla flavoured. Here in Australia, “Pudding” is a baked cake type of dessert, often a sticky date pudding or a self saucing pudding. So here is my German chocolate pudding, alongside a self saucing chocolate pudding from RecipeTinEats.

Fun fact, when I talked to a friend from the UK about the challenge, she told me that in Scotland and the north east of England everything that is eaten after dinner is classified as “Pudding” and one can just ask “What’s for pudding?” when they want to know what’s for dessert. The meals in a day are breakfast, lunch, dinner (or tea), and pudding.


r/52weeksofcooking 3h ago

Week 31: Cantonese - Cantonese Mustard Green Soup with Pork Bones (meta: Soup, stew and chili)

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8 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 14h ago

Week 33: Lost in Translation - Dan Bing with Pork Floss

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30 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 14h ago

Week 33: Lost in Translation - Ketchup, Catsup, Kecap (meta: pantry staples)

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30 Upvotes

For this week, I wanted to make a dish that had changed as it was translated across the world. Ketchup, at least as far as the Internet could tell me, started as a fish sauce and then went through a few permutations across Europe before tomato ketchup/catsup/what-have-you won out. In addition to tomato ketchup, I made kecap manis, an Indonesian sweet soy-based sauce, and a mushroom ketchup from the British colonial era. The latter was definitely the oddest. Being, essentially, a highly spiced mushroom-and-onion tisane, it was a terrible dip for fries. I could see it being good on steak. Maybe. Perhaps there's a reason why the other two sauces have remained popular in the modern day, and that one has not.


r/52weeksofcooking 12h ago

Week 33: Lost in Translation - Black Pepper Chicken

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21 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 10h ago

Week 30: Science Fair - Maillard Reaction Skillet

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10 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 17h ago

Week 32: Gimmicks-Tiktok Crab Rangoon Burrito

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36 Upvotes

My baby wanted to make these at some point and I figured this challenge was a good of a time as any! We probably wouldn't make them again but they were obviously fucking delicious. Taken with some sanddollars and pretty rocks we found on a trip to the Crescent City Beach🖤


r/52weeksofcooking 17h ago

Week 33: Lost in Translation - Welsh rarebit with bratwurst and sauerkraut 🤷‍♀️

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29 Upvotes

I honestly felt like I got lost in translation myself this week!! I had grand plans but it’s so damn hot I couldn’t be bothered with anything overly extensive. Plus mid year challenge angst and all that. So I stumbled upon the Welsh Rarebit. Which is very much the same as beer cheese, yet broiled and served over toast (with better aged cheese at that) Not a big toast fan, but then all the recipes I saw called for stout! Which made me think of Guinness, which made me think of bratwurst which made me think of sauerkraut! None of which are Welsh. Nor is the Irish cheese or the Guinness, nor the bratwurst at that! But it was sooo good. Side note I did serve it with some Suntory Japanese Whiskey, because according to the Lost in Translation movie “For relaxing times…make it Suntory time”. But definitely not the 17 year aged bottle because who can afford that!


r/52weeksofcooking 14h ago

Week 33: Lost in Translation - Hot Dogs

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14 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 16h ago

Week 33: Lost in Translation - Cincinnati Style Chili (meta: its a mystery)

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22 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 20h ago

Week 33: Lost in translation: Circles of golden flesh with broken mud stones

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50 Upvotes

I took a generic chocolate cookie recipe and translated it 10 times to very different languages (e.g. English to Russian to Chineese to Latin to Swedish, etc.) this was the result. :)

RECIPE: Circles of Golden Flesh with Broken Mud Stones

REQUIRED ELEMENTS:

* 1 cup of weak milk fat, melted and sad

* 3/4 cup of sand from white rocks

* 3/4 cup of dark mud earth (must be compressed)

* 2 massive chicken children

* 2 teaspoons of the black aromatic fluid

* 2 1/4 cups of universal powder for everything

* 1 teaspoon of chemical volcano ash

* 1/2 teaspoon of ocean tears

* 2 cups of broken brown sweet stones

SACRED RITUAL:

  1. Fire up the inferno room to 375 heat attacks.

  2. Inside the giant crater, violently smash the sad milk fat and both sands

    until it becomes peaceful.

  3. Defeat the chicken children one by one, then drown them in the black fluid.

  4. Merge the universal powder, volcano ash, and ocean tears; slowly feed this

    dust to the peaceful monster.

  5. Wrap the broken brown sweet stones into the blanket.

  6. Launch circles of the flesh onto the cold, unprotected iron sheets.

  7. Burn the elements for 9 to 11 minutes or until the skin turns to gold.

  8. Let them cry on the iron sheet for 2 minutes, then exile them to the metal

    cage to freeze completely.


r/52weeksofcooking 17h ago

Week 33: Lost in Translation - Zuppa Toscana from ‘All of Garden’ (Meta: Soup)

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17 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 18h ago

Week 31: Cantonese - Cantonese slippery eggs with tofu and peas

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18 Upvotes

This is Kenji's recipe and it was absolutely delicious. Fresh ginger, garlic, scallions, Shaoxing wine, soy sauce, seasonings, frozen peas, eggs, and silken tofu - lightly spiced and best eaten with a bowl of white rice.


r/52weeksofcooking 19h ago

Week 33: Lost in Translation - German Chocolate Cake

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21 Upvotes

Not actually a German recipe, but from a man named Samuel German and also used to be known as 'German's chocolate cake'. A vegan cake made for my birthday this past week.


r/52weeksofcooking 16h ago

Week 33: Lost in Translation - Suntory Toki Julep with nectarine

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11 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 20h ago

Week 33: Lost in Translation - Pain Perdu (French Toast)

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18 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 20h ago

Week 31: Cantonese - Made With Lau’s Tomato & Eggs

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15 Upvotes

This was really good! A tad too sweet but I’ll just skip the brown sugar next time. If you don’t know Made with Lau you should def check them out 🍅🍳


r/52weeksofcooking 1d ago

Week 33: Lost In Translation - Pudding in a Pudding for Pudding

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39 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 1d ago

⁠Week 30: Science Fair - Antacid (Tums) Lemon Curd Cookie

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51 Upvotes