Today’s NYT Strands leans hard into dessert vibes, with a theme that feels like a warm café: Bon appétit! If the grid seems stubborn, you’re not alone—this one includes words that can be tricky to spot unless you know what you’re hunting for. Once you get the hang of the theme, though, the board starts to snap into place.
Hints
Theme: treats you might have with coffee or tea.
If you’re scanning the grid, focus on categories that naturally pair with hot drinks: French-sounding sweets and the kinds of bakery delicacies you’d expect in a pastry case.
When you’re solving, remember how Strands reveals theme words: finding three longer entries typically unlocks one of the big theme connections. If you need a nudge, these clue words are useful for pulling threads across the board:
French (as a starting direction for the general idea), plus other helpful shapes like care, race, mare, ream, cats, cast, casts, bake, case, cases, scat. Even when you’re not sure the exact final entry, these can help you locate where the “bakery/dessert” cluster is hiding.
Still stuck? Here’s the key meta approach: once you notice you’re building toward French pastry style answers, start looking for familiar names that fit the pattern lengths you’re seeing in the grid—especially ones that sound right when you say them like you’d order them.
Answers
Nonspangram answers:
ECLAIR, MOUSSE, MACARON, MERINGUE, CROISSANT
Spangram: FRENCHBAKERY
To find the spangram, start with the F that appears as the first letter on the top row, then follow the path straight across and then straight down.
If you want a quick refresher on the mechanics that make these word “windings” work, the Connections tag page is a good place to ground your strategy alongside other NYT puzzle-solving help—especially when you’re toggling between spotting patterns and confirming you’ve got the right theme.
For many solvers, the most satisfying moment is realizing the grid isn’t just “random desserts”—it’s aiming at a very specific flavor of bakery vocabulary. Once that clicks, the remaining entries tend to fall in faster waves, and you can usually solve the last one without second-guessing.
