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Apple pan ___ (baked pastry) / WED 4-1-26 / Bone that squeaks, maybe / Midwestern native
Wednesday, April 1, 2026
Constructor: Jess Shulman and Amie Walker
Relative difficulty: Easy...? (7:06 on my phone while walking home)
THEME: QUIP — In a classic "Quip Puzzle," the clues are just there to show you where to write each part of the quote. Here, each clue (phrased just like they would be in a Quip Puzzle) is a literal description of the entry. More details below!
Theme answers:
Word of the Day: Apple pan DOWDY —
Hey squad! Happy Malaika MWednesday! Short write-up from me today as I have some work I need to finish :( I wondered what trick they'd throw at me for their April Fools' Day puzzle, and this seemed pretty tame. I think I could see it as a Thursday puzzle if it hadn't been April 1st.
- [Quip, part 1] for QUICK START
- The first part of the term "quip" is the letter Q, so that is circled
- Additionally, the "start" of the word "quick" is the letter Q
- [Quip, part 2] for YOUNG AT HEART
- The first part of the term "quip" is the letter U, so that is circled
- Additionally, the "heart" (or center) or the word "young" is the letter U
- [Quip, part 3] for SECOND IN LINE
- The third part of the term "quip" is the letter I, so that is circled
- Additionally, the "second" in the word "line" is the letter I
- [Quip, part 4] for PAY UP FRONT
- The fourth part of the term "quip" is the letter P, so that is circled
- Additionally, the "front" of the word "pay" is the letter P
Word of the Day: Apple pan DOWDY —
Grunts, pandowdy, and slumps are Canadian Maritimes, New England, and Pennsylvania Dutch varieties of cobbler, typically cooked on the stovetop, or in an iron skillet or pan, with the dough on top in the shape of dumplings. They reportedly take their name from the grunting sound they make while cooking. Another name for the types of biscuits or dumplings used is dough-boys. In the United States, additional varieties of cobbler include the Betty, the buckle (made with yellow batter [like cake batter] with the filling mixed in with the batter), the dump (or dump cake), and the sonker. The sonker is unique to North Carolina: it is a deep-dish version of the American cobbler. [wiki]
• • •
Constructors can be so creative! I could imagine brainstorming aspects of this theme, but no way could I have come up with every part and got them all working together. Quip Puzzles are a very polarizing type of theme. Everyone I know (including me) hates them. (I only say they're polarizing as opposed to hated bc presumably some people must like them if they keep getting published??) So I think it makes a lot of sense to theme a puzzle around making a solver think it's a Quip Puzzle and then pulling the rug out from under them.
I don't solve cryptic crosswords, but I understand that the clues in them are similar to what's going on here. You are plucking letters that will be in the entry from parts of the clue, with words like "start" or "second" giving you hints. We've seen cryptic-esque clues in Sam's April 1st puzzle from several years ago. And even regular puzzles will occasionally employ cryptic techniques like [Enrollment center?] as a clue for ELS.
I wonder how many phrases they brainstormed for each of the letters! I could imagine, e.g. PICK FIRST as an entry for [Quip, part 4], so I think part of the challenge comes from getting everything to have a symmetrical number of letters. With some puzzles, if you have (e.g.) two theme answers that are ten letters and two that are thirteen letters, you can swap the positions of theme answers 1 & 4 and answers 2 & 3. Here, the order matters.
I wonder how many phrases they brainstormed for each of the letters! I could imagine, e.g. PICK FIRST as an entry for [Quip, part 4], so I think part of the challenge comes from getting everything to have a symmetrical number of letters. With some puzzles, if you have (e.g.) two theme answers that are ten letters and two that are thirteen letters, you can swap the positions of theme answers 1 & 4 and answers 2 & 3. Here, the order matters.
On top of the cleverness of the theme, there were some great long entries with I GOTTA SAY, INDIE POP, HOT DATES, WATCH THIS, DOG TOY, and TREE FROG. So impressive! I found the clues throughout to be really easy, which I think made the theme entries fall into place for me. Even though I didn't clock what was going on until the puzzle was fully done (I knew it wasn't a Quip Puzzle, but I didn't get what the theme entries meant), my time was still average.
Bullets:
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Bullets:
- [Go a-courtin'?] for SUE — Cute!
- [Nash who wrote "Who wants my jellyfish? / I'm not sellyfish!"] for OGDEN — I comment on a lot of the older references that are lost on me, but I know and love Ogden Nash. (Because my grandparents had a book of his rhymes at their house lol.)
- [Kind of burger that lacks meat] for SOY — I've heard of VEGGIE burgers, black bean burgers, impossible burgers, beyond burgers.... I have never heard of a soy burger!
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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- American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (Stamford, CT, Apr. 10-12, 2026) (registration closed!)
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11 comments:
I came here because I was too lazy to try and figure it out, but still wouldn’t it have been better to not circle the letters. You’d get more early traffic for sure and it would indeed be an april fools quip
Easy and easier than yesterday’s for me.
No costly erasures and the QUIP was it for WOEs.
Smooth grid with some entertaining long downs, liked but I had no idea about the QUIP until I read the constructor notes…AHA a CRYPTic! April fool! I doubt that I would have figured it out on my own as I haven’t done many cryptics.
A quip is a
: a clever usually taunting remark : GIBE
b
: a witty or funny observation or response usually made on the spur of the moment
These “quips” were not. Better than my usual Wednesday but felt let down. Thanks. Without your explanation I’d have no clue what this was supposed to be, if all quip puzzles are like this I’m in the “not a fan” club.
10:27 for me, so I guess that's medium for me on a Wednesday. Tried to look up the phrase online after I finished... I saw that the circled letters spelled QUIP but I still was wondering if this was lyrics to a song or what. So I really missed the gag, until I read Malaika's write-up and the NYT crossword answers page. So.... it's not a QUIP puzzle after all! I get it now. Cute. And Malaika--here I am. A person you interact with who likes (real) QUIP puzzles... I even like this one! Cute concept, well executed. I was just being dense. Enjoyed the double environmental clues, MICKEYDS, the TREEFROGS, and the apple pan dowdy! Making me hungry for some unhealthy food.... I guess I should start with a SOY or VEGGIE burger at the BBQ first! Thanks, Jess and Amie, for a clever QUIP--you certainly fooled me!!!!!
Today harkened back to the absolute worst type of crossword puzzle, and while that has fortunately fallen by the wayside, this was only mildly better.
Very easy. Didn't understand the theme (still don't), but solved it quickly thanks to a dearth of misdirects in the cluing. One question...How does the letter "I" in IHOP justify its presence throughout the world?
Monday Easy. Solved without reading the theme clues and didn't understand how the theme answers related to each other. So that's it? There's a "Q" in one themer, a "U" in another, and then an "I" and a "P" to make up a QUIP?
Still don't get it.
* * _ _ _
One overwrite, tempt before BLAME at 1A. No WOEs.
“The New York Times crossword puzzles will no longer feature wordplay,” said Games crossword spokesperson Aria DiOreo. “It has grown out of date, worn, and will be phased out.”
The reaction was swift:
“We’re in treble,” said a chorus teacher.
“It’s about tine,” said a resident of Grand Forks.
“Don’t shout it, please,” said someone, “but I’d like some confirmention.”
“I am in great dis-tress,” said someone else who just shaved their head in protest.
“Don’t know what to think of this,” said a see-saw.
“They never get it right,” snorted Mr. Ed.
“Too busy working my NFL football muscles climbing rungs,” said a ladder-day Saint.
“Poppycock!” said a chick hatchling seeing its daddy for the first time.
(It’s good to start out April foolish…)
Don't understand how the themers are actually quips - phrases, maybe. I was fooled by the rhyming nature of the first two, thinking that the 3rd and 4th would also rhyme, or that somehow all 4 would make sense together. This cost me 3 minutes as I tried to figure out how xxxUPFRONT might fit into the pattern. But, there was no pattern. Just random phrases.
Commentariat really whiffing today. The way I went from “ugh a quip puzzle” to “huh?” to “oh… nice one!” Satisfying! Extremely clever. Refreshing. Inventive. The whole POINT of the theme is that the theme answers are not in fact “quips”—it’s the letters in “quip” that we’re dealing with, with each theme answer self-referentially (“letterally”) referring to one of the letters in “quip.” So both the theme clues AND the theme answers involve self-referential wordplay. All in a clean, easy grid. A very nice, non-annoying way to do April Fools. Loved it.
INTERNATIONAL House of Pancakes is what the initialism stands for
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