All meal type foods are exempted from their respective berachos before and after, during the seuda. Examples: meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, cheese, porridge, salted food. They are either condiments with the bread or serve the same function as bread – satiation. This applies even if not eaten with the bread. (ShA1 – BeH “l’lafays”)
Don’t eat bread just for the purpose of exempting all other foods. There is a doubt if this works. (MB3)
Dessert-type foods served during the meal are not exempted by the Hamotzi even if they were on the table at the time of the beracha. Example: Fruit, whether raw or cooked. They aren’t toffel to the bread and require their own beracha rishona. But since they are eaten during the meal the Birkas Hamazon will exempt them from a beracha achrona. (ShA1 – MB4,8)
If you eat dessert-type foods during the meal with some bread at the beginning and the end, don’t say a separate beracha on them even when eating them alone in between. Even better would be to say a beracha on them before eating them with bread and then eat some by themselves. (ShA1 – MB8,10)
Fruit cooked in a recipe for the main meal (like apple tzimmes with meat) is a doubt in halacha. You should be machmir either to bring some raw fruit, say a beracha and exempt the tzimmes – or eat some bread before and after eating the tzimmes. If the recipe also contains potatoes, you do not need to be machmir. (MB4 – BeH “k’gon”)
Say a beracha on dessert. But even dessert, when eaten with bread the entire time, is toffel to the bread. (MB8 – ShaH13)
In the rare case that you kovaya seuda on fruit, just begin eating the fruit with bread and that’s all – you don’t say a beracha on the fruit. (MB10)
