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Thought for the Day: The Coolest Cookie Recipe -- What's the Bracha?

My wife is, bli ayin hara, an amazing baker. She is the Bubbie about whom the other girls in my granddaughter's bunk in summer camp said, "Oh wow! You brought some of your Bubbie's cookies!?"

Today she made the best cookies ever. They are gluten free and delicious. That's not what makes them -- for me, anyway -- the best cookies ever. These cookies are made with almond flour, rolled oats, pumpkin pie filling, and egg, some vanilla, and oil. I only know that because I needed to know what bracha to make. Here are the issues.

First, rolled oats are "borei pri ha'adama". Cooked oats, on the other hand, are "borei minei m'zonos". Almond flour, pumpkin pie filling, and oil are all, of course, "she'ha'kol". The overwhelming majority of of the cookie (Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies; but substitute almond flour for the real flour) volume is from "she'ha'kol" ingredients. Normally that would mean that the bracha on the cookie is "she'ha'kol" and afterwards a "borei nefashos". But the five grains (when cooked) are special -- as long as they are included for their taste (and not just as a binder), then the resulting food gets their bracha of "borei minei m'zonos".

The question here, then, whether the liquid -- no water, all "mei peiros" -- and heat are sufficient to break down the starch in the oats enough to transform them from a "borei pri ha'adama" to a "borei minei m'zonos"? Let's say it is. But are there enough oats to stick together in that amount of other stuff. And does it matter if they actually stick together or does it only depend on whether they would stick together if there was enough of them. (I can attest that the look and feel and taste of separate/lonely little oats in a sea of delicious/soft/sticky cookie. Yum.) Because if there is, then the whole cookie goes from  to "she'ha'kol" (the bracha of the majority) to "borei minei m'zonos" (the bracha of the special case). There is no water, but there is both oil and whatever moisture is in pumpkin pie filling.

So let's say you are stuck with an honest doubt. No worries, just always have some "she'ha'kol" and a cracker before eating the cookies. But suppose you don't have any of that; you just have that one delicious cookie and you are really hungry. Now what? While it is true that both "borei minei m'zonos" and "she'ha'kol" work for any food after the fact; the "borei minei m'zonos" is harder to justify (it does not cover water and salt, for example). So when the cookie dust settles... you would be better off making a "she'ha'kol". (Personally I lean toward thinking the oats are cooked enough anyway, but I'm planning to only eat them after crackers and something "she'ha'kol" (not water, since if you are only drinking the water to exempt cover something else, maybe the water doesn't get it's own "she'ha'kol").

Afterward, though, I will definitely make a "borei nefashos" since I am not likely to eat enough cookies at one sitting to consume a whole k'zayis of oats. And even though we sometimes look at they volume of the whole cookie (like chocolate chip cookies), since there is some doubt and the majority ingredients are most certainly not "borei minei m'zonos" material; in this case I'll make  a "borei nefashos".

Two final comments: (1) hilchos brachos is so fun; (2) after all this, I am thinking the appropriate way to get the "she'ha'kol" is with a schnaptz (please; not sherry cask...)

L'Chaim!

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