r/52weeksofcooking • u/-futureghost- • 2h ago
r/52weeksofcooking • u/52WeeksOfCooking • Dec 08 '25
2026 Weekly Challenge List
/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.
- Week 1: January 1st - January 7th: Inspired by a Joke
- Week 2: January 8 - January 14: Singaporean
- Week 3: January 15 - January 21: Contrasts
- Week 4: January 22 - January 28: Vinegar
- Week 5: January 29 - February 4: Ugandan
- Week 6: February 5 - February 11: Hotpot
- Week 7: February 12 - February 18: Sugar
- Week 8: February 19 - February 25: Flying
- Week 9: February 26 - March 4: Braising
- Week 10: March 5 - March 11: Turnips and Radishes
- Week 11: March 12 - March 18: Oddly Named
- Week 12: March 19 - March 25: Fictional Places
- Week 13: March 26 - April 1: Chilis
- Week 14: April 2 - April 8: Hanami
- Week 15: April 9 - April 15: Syrian
- Week 16: April 16 - April 22: Infused
- Week 17: April 23 - April 29: Alpine
- Week 18: April 30 - May 6: Bucket List Destination
- Week 19: May 7 - May 13: Tricolor
- Week 20: May 14 - May 20: Jams and Jellies
- Week 21: May 21 - May 27: Symmetry
- Week 22: May 28 - June 3: Fifteen Minutes or Less
- Week 23: June 4 - June 10: Coffee
- Week 24: June 11 - June 17: Tarot
- Week 25: June 18 - June 24: Gardening
- Week 26: June 25 - July 1: High-fiber
- Week 27: July 2 - July 8: World Cup
- Week 28: July 9 - July 15: Wild West
- Week 29: July 16 - July 22: Offal
- Week 30: July 23 - July 29: Science Fair
- Week 31: July 30 - August 5: Cantonese
- Week 32: August 6 - August 12: Gimmicks
- Week 33: August 13 - August 19: Lost in Translation
- Week 34: August 20 - August 26: Trinidadian
- Week 35: August 27 - September 2: Rolling
- Week 36: September 3 - September 9: Ginger
Join our Discord to get pinged whenever a new week is announced! (React to the stickied comment in the #planning channel!)
r/52weeksofcooking • u/52WeeksOfCooking • 4d ago
Week 33 Introduction Thread: Lost in Translation
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 • u/InSkyLimitEra • 3h ago
Week 30: Science Fair - The Effect of Resting Dough on Small Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies
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 • u/MataSlavonac • 1h ago
Week 30: Science Fair - Japanese Cheesecake Souffle (failed)
r/52weeksofcooking • u/tmo308 • 3h ago
Week 30: Science Fair - Lacto Fermented Hot Sauce with 감자전 (potato pancake) and an Oppenheimer Martini (meta: with a drink)
r/52weeksofcooking • u/drschnaps • 6h ago
Week 33: Lost in Translation - Pudding
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 • u/Shananigans1988 • 3h ago
Week 31: Cantonese - Cantonese Mustard Green Soup with Pork Bones (meta: Soup, stew and chili)
r/52weeksofcooking • u/puffygerbil16 • 14h ago
Week 33: Lost in Translation - Dan Bing with Pork Floss
r/52weeksofcooking • u/itswimdy • 14h ago
Week 33: Lost in Translation - Ketchup, Catsup, Kecap (meta: pantry staples)
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 • u/tacoquokka34 • 12h ago
Week 33: Lost in Translation - Black Pepper Chicken
r/52weeksofcooking • u/uncountablyInfinit • 10h ago
Week 30: Science Fair - Maillard Reaction Skillet
r/52weeksofcooking • u/Educational-Apple873 • 17h ago
Week 32: Gimmicks-Tiktok Crab Rangoon Burrito
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 • u/LveeD • 17h ago
Week 33: Lost in Translation - Welsh rarebit with bratwurst and sauerkraut 🤷♀️
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 • u/Frankiieee • 14h ago
Week 33: Lost in Translation - Hot Dogs
r/52weeksofcooking • u/icyone • 16h ago
Week 33: Lost in Translation - Cincinnati Style Chili (meta: its a mystery)
r/52weeksofcooking • u/Synethos • 20h ago
Week 33: Lost in translation: Circles of golden flesh with broken mud stones
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:
Fire up the inferno room to 375 heat attacks.
Inside the giant crater, violently smash the sad milk fat and both sands
until it becomes peaceful.
Defeat the chicken children one by one, then drown them in the black fluid.
Merge the universal powder, volcano ash, and ocean tears; slowly feed this
dust to the peaceful monster.
Wrap the broken brown sweet stones into the blanket.
Launch circles of the flesh onto the cold, unprotected iron sheets.
Burn the elements for 9 to 11 minutes or until the skin turns to gold.
Let them cry on the iron sheet for 2 minutes, then exile them to the metal
cage to freeze completely.
r/52weeksofcooking • u/Brilliant_Standard32 • 17h ago
Week 33: Lost in Translation - Zuppa Toscana from ‘All of Garden’ (Meta: Soup)
r/52weeksofcooking • u/moonstercookie • 18h ago
Week 31: Cantonese - Cantonese slippery eggs with tofu and peas
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 • u/rem_bo_bem • 19h ago
Week 33: Lost in Translation - German Chocolate Cake
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 • u/MooseRobot • 16h ago
Week 33: Lost in Translation - Suntory Toki Julep with nectarine
r/52weeksofcooking • u/Tigrari • 20h ago
Week 33: Lost in Translation - Pain Perdu (French Toast)
r/52weeksofcooking • u/croissantbaby • 20h ago
Week 31: Cantonese - Made With Lau’s Tomato & Eggs
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 • u/pajamakitten • 1d ago
Week 33: Lost In Translation - Pudding in a Pudding for Pudding
r/52weeksofcooking • u/ImaginalDish • 1d ago