Hello,
A few weeks ago you wrote an article about the bracha on Pizza. I understand that pizza is almost always treated as a meal, so the bracha should be Hamotzi, but what about other pastries that are actually snacks and not that often meals?
For example: sweet pancakes, bourekas, empanadas, doughnuts.
Are these Mezonot unless you will actually have any of those as your actual breakfast, lunch or dinner? As I read on the S”A and the Rambam it seems that the intention and not the quantity is what matters in order to say Mezonot or Hamotzi.
There are really two different principles at work. One is based on the normal purpose of the food, and the other is based on the quantity eaten. Regular bread is always Hamotzi, even if you only eat a small piece, because bread is inherently a food that people use for a meal (קובע סעודה). Pizza falls into that same category because, in today’s culture, it is commonly eaten as a meal. Foods such as pancakes, cakes, cookies, crackers, bourekas, empanadas, and doughnuts are generally eaten as snacks, so their normal bracha is Mezonot. However, if you eat enough of one of those foods that it becomes your actual meal, then you have been קובע סעודה on it, and the bracha changes to Hamotzi. The exact amount depends on the circumstances, so I cannot give a universal number, but the basic distinction is whether the food is normally considered a meal food or whether you have personally turned it into a meal by the amount you ate.