New York Times, Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Sometimes your puzzle gets accepted straight away. Sometimes it takes an unbelievable amount of revisions, which was the case with today's "Cake" puzzle. My original submission got an enthusiastic endorsement from NYTXW's Joel Fagliano on the theme material, but the fill needed a lot of work.

That first submission was a traditional 15x15 grid, with a 9-length theme entry at the center. Central 9s are tough to work with, and it was definitely a challenge here. I went through half a dozen versions of the 15x15 grid design, trying to keep 5 theme entries plus the CAKE revealer. At one point, I even played with the idea of PIECE OF CAKE as a revealer instead of just CAKE. I almost gave up on the grid entirely a few times before finally having the idea to extend it to a 16x15 with a central 8 (thus removing the tough central 9 issue). It was still quite hard to fill well - in fact, I thought it was another dead end until I discovered WIDE CUT to solve a problem in the bottom right corner. In the end, it took working on this off and on for about 3 months to get the grid into publishing shape.

I'm really pleased with the end product here. There's definitely some crosswordese (I'm cringing at ETUI), but I'm happy overall. I especially love how tight the theme is; there aren't too many combinations of cake types that work! The one entry I was bummed to lose was ROCK OPERA, but I got feedback that opera cake isn't well known enough (personally, I think it is!). I'm also happy with the long bonus entries, which I think are quite colorful and match the theme's fun vibe. I hope you enjoyed it!

People either love or hate "Forrest Gump." Say what you will, but who can forget Bubba reciting his shrimp list? My daughter's version would sound like today's puzzle. For dessert, I want LEMON cake, YELLOW cake, WHITE cake, COCONUT cake, CUP cake, FRUIT cake—

Hey, go back downstairs, daddy's working. No, he doesn't have cake! Really! No, he didn't mention CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM, or CHOCOLATE cake, or ICE CREAM cake. Yes, those all do sound good.

Looks like I'm going to the store later today.

I loved getting GLOWSTICK, GUEST ROOM, ACROBATIC, such great entries. I'd usually include IGUANODON in there, but in no way is that worth the price of ETUI. A single entry like this can be so foul to newer solvers; a single bad egg souring the cake.

If you need a Maleskan entry, your grid design needs revision. In this case, break up IGUANODON, or eliminate FRUIT CUP from the puzzle to open things up. Even for a CAKE lover like me, there's such a thing as too much.

"Both words can precede X" themes are largely going by the wayside these days, so it takes something special to make one work. I appreciated the efforts to incorporate so many types of cake and to offer up so many bonuses, but I could have used less sugar overload in the theme. Maybe BEEF PATTY could have provided more variety.