Q&A: Mezonot or HaMotzi
Mezonot or HaMotzi
Question
The food is prepared from gluten-free flour whose blessing is Shehakol.
It ran out.
So they mix in a little HaMotzi flour [which is also gluten-free]. In practice it comes out about half-and-half, or even with a majority of the flour being the flour that is HaMotzi.
But I looked at the ingredients of the flour that is HaMotzi and discovered that only 51% of it is HaMotzi flour. The other ingredients in that flour are flours whose blessing is Shehakol. A mixture like that…
The question is: since in practice most of the flour in the product is Shehakol, should the blessing over it be Shehakol?
Or do we say that each earlier component is nullified as the next is added, and the 51% HaMotzi flour determines that this flour is HaMotzi, and since that flour is apparently the majority of the product relative to the additional flour [which is purely from Shehakol flours], the blessing would be HaMotzi?
Answer
I don’t know what is meant by gluten-free flour. I know that the five species of grain contain gluten. I also know that there is gluten-free oat bread. The criterion for the blessing of HaMotzi is something made from the five species of grain, regardless of whether it contains gluten or not.
If you mean a mixture with flours not from the five species of grain, see here: https://din.org.il/2018/06/25/%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%9B%D7%94-%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%9C%D7%97%D7%9D-%D7%A9%D7%9E%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%91-%D7%91%D7%A7%D7%9E%D7%97%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%A9%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%9D-%D7%A9%D7%94%D7%9B%D7%9C/
So even a small amount of regular flour is enough to require HaMotzi.
Discussion on Answer
I’ll repeat again that if it is from the five species of grain, then in my opinion its blessing is HaMotzi and not Shehakol, even if it has no gluten.
More power to you.
The problem is that the flour from the five species of grain is the minority.
Even in that case, should one say HaMotzi?
See the link above.
More power to you.
It’s wheat flour or oat flour where, through one process or another, they get rid of the gluten. [Or some mutation of wheat or oats in which the gluten percentage is close to zero.] In practice, this makes up only 51% of that particular flour we added, only because the regular flour ran out, and now this flour is either the majority or almost the majority in the food.
And the regular flour is Shehakol flour.
So the flour that is HaMotzi [on its own] is certainly much less than 50% of the food as a whole. But it took over [for purposes of the blessing] by force of the majority [51%, according to the manufacturer] within the flour we added in the first place, which may be the majority of the flour in the dish. [Whereas previously it was there, but maybe a minority within all the flour.]