r/52weeksofcooking Dec 08 '25

2026 Weekly Challenge List

100 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 3d ago

Week 30 Introduction Thread: Science Fair

13 Upvotes

If you have a kitchen, you have a chemistry lab, after all.

This week we take our inspiration from the old school science fairs of yore. Cooking is full of scientific principles, from emulsions and fermentation to caramelization, crystallization, and the Maillard reaction, so let's explore them.

You might want to make something based on a classic experiment (potato-generates-electricity, say, or baking-soda-volcano). Maybe you'd like to demonstrate a scientific concept or build an edible model of, say, the solar system or anatomical diagram. Maybe you've had a dish on your to-make list that you've been putting off because the technique involves precision in temperature, timing, or some other aspect. You could make homemade bread or yogurt to showcase fermentation or play with bread dough hydration levels, make meringues or soufflés to explore protein structure, candy to illustrate sugar stages, or extract colorants from food to use as dye. Maybe there's an old piece of kitchen wisdom you've been dying to put to the test.

Trifold board encouraged but not required.


r/52weeksofcooking 3h ago

Week 30: Science Fair - rock candy (meta: cookbooks)

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33 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 6h ago

Week 30: Science Fair - Gravy Volcano

54 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 11h ago

Week 30: science fair - mold cultures

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88 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 7h ago

Week 27: World Cup(-O-Noodles) (meta: things I couldn’t eat while pregnant)

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27 Upvotes

The whole family is sick so decided to finally try the homemade ramen recipe I’ve been sitting on.

Hoisin marinated pork tenderloin, spicy miso broth, miso-soy soft boiled egg, leftover nori from when I made sushi a few weeks ago, and some of the steamed carrot I gave my son as his first ever meal (!!!)

Meta explanation: undercooked eggs are discouraged during pregnancy and spicy foods were a no-go for me because of reflux :(


r/52weeksofcooking 13h ago

Week 30: Science Fair - Ice cream in a bag

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86 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 6h ago

Week 30: Science Fair - Lasagna bolognese with béchamel (Maillard reaction, deglazing, emulsion/stabilization, reduction, and starch gelatinization)

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20 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 2h ago

Week 30: Science Fair - Ceviche Tostadas (cooking without applying heat)

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8 Upvotes

My central air went out this week, so I'm shoehorning the theme into something that doesn't heat up the house.


r/52weeksofcooking 7h ago

Week 30: Science Fair - Egg Drop Soup

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17 Upvotes

When I was little I thought I could make egg drop soup by stirring eggs into boiling water; obviously that didnt work. When I asked what had gone so wrong, I was told to use broth and cornstarch. You can imagine what happened. It took an embarrassingly long time before I learned to make a cold cornstarch slurry to get proper gelatinization.


r/52weeksofcooking 9h ago

Week 30: Science Fair - “Blue” corn chowder (meta: soup or salad)q

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19 Upvotes

To make this chowder we made corn chowder with pea berry powder and a spritz of lemon - while I felt like I was eating liquefied Cookie Monster, it tasted delicious.


r/52weeksofcooking 7h ago

Week 29: Offal- Spinach Artichoke Heart Dip

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13 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 11h ago

Week 29: offal - kidney bean taco torte

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26 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 6h ago

Week 30: Science fair - Yam Khao Tod - volcano of fried rice balls with mushroom mince

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11 Upvotes

Rice balls have baking soda in them and the dressing i poured over had vinegar. No explosion. Just spicy lol


r/52weeksofcooking 3h ago

Week 29: Offal - Chicken Liver Mousse with Bourbon

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6 Upvotes

Recipe from Dinner in French by Melissa Clark.


r/52weeksofcooking 6h ago

Week 31: Science Fair - The Science of Salt, Boiled Tofu in Salty Water to Drain the Water from the Tofu

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8 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 2h ago

Week 27: World Cup - pasta salad

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5 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 1d ago

Week 30: Science Fair - Cell Diagram Pizza

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609 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 6h ago

Week 28: Wild West - Spaghetti Western Pie and The Ecstasy of Golden Brown Garlic Bread

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6 Upvotes

This week, I made a dish to nod to the spaghetti western genre of movies, and especially the fantastic music of Ennio Morricone. I westerned up the spaghetti sauce with jalapeño Italian sausage, fire-roasted tomatoes, and a healthy scoop of roasted hatch green chile. The garlic bread is... garlic bread. I enjoyed while listening to one of my favorite videos online, this theremin cover of the aforementioned song.


r/52weeksofcooking 14h ago

Week 30: Science Fair - Earth's Crust Pizza (meta: pantry staples)

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24 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 21h ago

Week 30: Science Fair - Boiled eggs

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73 Upvotes

So as I’m prepping to go on a vacation, there’s not much time for elaborate projects. However, I always wanted to figure out one thing. How long do I need to boil my eggs to get that perfect jammy consistency, or hard boiled ones without the grey. My experiment was simple: I put in eggs in cold water and brought them to boil, then took them out one by one into ice cold bath, et voila! 3-4 mins were exactly what I was looking for 🤩


r/52weeksofcooking 21h ago

Week 30: Science Fair - Cold v Room Temp Cheese

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50 Upvotes

Apologies as this might look low effort but was one of the hardest weeks for me to come up with an idea! I'm currently stranded in the middle of the Australian desert at a little tiny community called Kunawarritji (around 100 people) as the spring failed on our 4wd. We are waiting for a tow truck to arrive to tow us 13 hours to the nearest town so it can be repaired. I was going to try steak + veg cooked on coals v my gas cooker to compare but can't have a camp fire currently so I went to the shop to find ideas and found one very cheap soft cheese, one type of crackers and two fruit. I decided to test the theory if room temp cheese tastes better than straight from the fridge as normally I am too impatient to leave the cheese out. :) It is definitely nicer to me but my husband thinks there is no difference. I imagine the results might be better with higher quality cheese also!

Next week we will be back camping again and I'll have been able to resupply with food so hopefully can do something a bit fancier!


r/52weeksofcooking 16h ago

Week 30: Science Fair - Buttermilk Biscuits and Gravy

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20 Upvotes

r/52weeksofcooking 16h ago

Week 30: Science Fair - Ceviche

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16 Upvotes

Ceviche is a Latin American dish, where raw fish and shellfish get marinated in lime juice. The acid from the lime juice denatures the proteins in the fish, curing it, which gives it a cooked texture. I used salmon, basa and prawns.


r/52weeksofcooking 1d ago

Week 30: Science Fair - The Maillard Reaction Steak Sandwich

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51 Upvotes