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If you are having a bread-meal and you have dessert in front of you, but you are uncertain if the homotzie covered it - what do you do?

Don't eat it? Eat it without a Bracha? Say shehakol (in the case that you don't know what the bracha is) and eat it? Some other option?

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    stick it on a bit of bread then eat it. Definitely doesn't require a separate b'racha then.. More practically, first say Birkat Hamazon. Then eat it when it definitely does require its own b'racha.
    – CashCow
    Apr 14, 2016 at 14:47
  • How would saying shehakol help?
    – Double AA
    Apr 14, 2016 at 16:05
  • @CashCow Are you allowed to (first say birkat hamazon)?, you probably need another step to do something else before saying the next brocho
    – hazoriz
    Apr 14, 2016 at 17:34
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    You could say Birkat Hamazon then take the dessert into a different room to eat it, if there's one available. Otherwise, just eat it together with a bit of bread. You don't have to make them into a sandwich: take a bite of bread and then a bite of dessert... That you're eating it at the same time makes it part of the "meal" that the hamotzi is covering.
    – CashCow
    Apr 15, 2016 at 8:32
  • @CashCow How much bread? Thanks
    – SAH
    Sep 25, 2017 at 16:38

2 Answers 2

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Whether or not one would make a Beracha on it is subject to a dispute of the Rishonim. Tosefos to Berachos 12a s.v. לא לאתויי נהמא cites a dispute between the Rif and the Ri about whether or not one makes a beracha rishona when unsure if a previous blessing covered it, with the Rif saying no and the Ri saying yes.

The Rif is understood according to the "simple" understanding of safek berachos lehakel, that we are lenient when there is a question regarding blessings. R' Akiva Eiger in the Gilyon HaShas there, citing the Maharsha to Pesachim 102a, explains the logic of the Ri that safek berachos lehakel only applies to blessings on mitzvos, in which the blessing does not prevent fulfillment of the mitzvah. But when it comes to eating, where it is forbidden to eat without a blessing, the blessing made out of doubt is not for nothing - it resolves the doubt and enables one to eat. Therefore one would make the appropriate blessing.

Shulchan Aruch Orech Chaim 209:3 rules like the Rif, to not make a new blessing, and that is common practice.

However, there is an alternative solution to avoid this doubt. Shulchan Aruch Orech Chaim 177:3, in resolution to a similar doubt (whether hamotzi covers fruit during the meal), writes that one could eat the first bite of fruit with bread and continue to eat the rest without bread and without a blessing. The same could be applied here, to start with eating the first bite together with bread. (Be'ur Halacha 177 s.v. Tov writes that one should preferably eat more than just a taste of bread together with the fruit.)

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  • +1 I always wondered why no one suggests doing that for maror (first little bite of lettuce with a crumb of matza) to avoid the bracha rishona issues.
    – Double AA
    Apr 15, 2016 at 16:32
  • Tos Berachot 39a cites Ri as requiring a Borei Nefashot on less than a Kezayit. I wonder if we can systematically pin the Ri on a consistently strong "Asur Leihanot Meiolam Hazeh Belo Berakh" potion.
    – Double AA
    Apr 15, 2016 at 16:35
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Don't eat it - is the chosid way to do .

eat it without a brocha -is the halocho.

To say shehakol - is forbidden
(shehakol you can only say if you know (100%) you need to say a brocho

Some other option - go learn.
you can start with the comments on the question,

See http://www.chabad.org/3330690/
And 12 and 14 here http://www.chabad.org/3330569/

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