A Bracha Achrona on Ice Cream

Q. If one eats a bowl of ice cream, is a beracha acharona said?

A. The question is how to view ice cream: Is it a food or a drink? If it is considered a food, one recites a beracha acharona if a kezayis is eaten in the time span of k’dei achilas pras (3-4 minutes). If it is a drink, a beracha acharona would not be said because one would need to eat a revi’is in the time span of k’dei shtiyas revi’is (a few seconds), which is not possible. Rav Shmuel Wosner zt”l (quoted in MiBeis Levi 5756, p. 49) maintains that ice cream is a food. However, Rav Ovadya Yosef zt”l (Yabia Omer OC 8:25) writes that it depends on how the ice cream is eaten. If one must chew it like a food, then it is a food. However, soft ice cream that is swallowed without chewing should be viewed as a drink, and no beracha acharona is said. Sefer Piskei Teshuvos (210, n. 27) rules that if one ate a revi’is of soft ice cream within 3-4 minutes, a beracha acharona should be said because of the confluence of two considerations. First, many poskim view all forms of ice cream as a food. Secondly, even if we view ice cream as a drink, there are many poskim who recite a beracha acharona on hot drinks or very cold drinks, since the standard manner is to drink them slowly. The same would apply to ice cream.

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