You know that feeling when you're staring at a piece of dry, crumbly "healthy" cake and wondering if this is just your life now? It’s depressing. Honestly, for years, the keto and low-carb world was basically a wasteland of sawdust-textured bread and desserts that tasted like regret. Then came Carolyn Ketchum. If you’ve spent more than five minutes looking for a sugar-free brownie recipe that doesn't taste like a chemistry set, you’ve probably landed on All Day I Dream About Food.
It’s not just a blog. It’s a resource that basically saved the sanity of thousands of diabetics and keto devotees who were tired of being told they could never have a cookie again. Carolyn started the site back in 2010. Think about that for a second. That was way before "keto" was a buzzword you’d see on every cereal box at Target. She was in the trenches with almond flour and erythritol when most people still thought fat was the enemy.
The site's name is a play on the old ADIDAS backronym, but it’s literal. When you have gestational diabetes—which was Carolyn’s entry point into this world—you really do spend all day dreaming about the stuff you can't have. But instead of just moping, she started hacking the recipes.
What All Day I Dream About Food Gets Right (That Others Miss)
Most food bloggers just want the SEO hit. They grab a generic recipe, swap sugar for a random sweetener, and call it a day. It usually fails. Baking is chemistry, and when you remove gluten and sugar, the physics of the oven change. Carolyn’s approach is different because she actually understands the science of sugar alternatives.
Have you ever tried to make a caramel sauce with xylitol? It stays grainy. Did you know allulose is the only thing that actually browns and melts like real sugar? She’s been shouting this from the rooftops for years. Her recipes work because she tests the living daylights out of them. She isn't just a "home cook"; she’s become a specialized pastry architect for the grain-free world.
The complexity of her work shows up in the details. She’ll tell you exactly why you need to use a specific brand of protein powder in your bread to keep it from collapsing. It’s that level of nuance that makes the site a staple. If you go to All Day I Dream About Food and print out her "Death by Chocolate" cheesecake, you aren't getting a "good for being keto" dessert. You're getting a world-class dessert that happens to be keto. There is a massive difference.
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The Real Impact on the Diabetic Community
We need to talk about the E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) factor here. Carolyn isn't a doctor, and she’s very clear about that. But she has lived experience with gestational diabetes and a deep understanding of how carbohydrates impact blood glucose. This isn't just about weight loss for her readers. For many, it's about medical necessity.
When you look at the comments on any given post, you see people sharing their A1C numbers. You see parents of Type 1 diabetic kids who finally found a birthday cake recipe that doesn't send their child's blood sugar into the stratosphere. That’s the real "why" behind the brand. It’s a community built on the idea that a medical diagnosis shouldn't mean the end of culinary joy.
Why the "Keto" Label is Sorta Misleading
People see the word keto and they think of butter-chugging and bacon-wrapped everything. While All Day I Dream About Food technically fits the keto macro profile, it’s much more aligned with a sophisticated Mediterranean-style low-carb approach.
She uses real food.
You won't find a lot of "franken-foods" or highly processed keto bars here. Instead, it’s about using whole ingredients like:
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- Fresh berries and lemons for acidity.
- High-quality fats like avocado oil and browned butter.
- Nut flours that actually provide nutrition.
- High-percentage cacao.
It’s a more sustainable way of eating. Most "diet" sites feel restrictive. This feels like an invitation to a dinner party. You've got recipes for Coquilles Saint-Jacques right next to a recipe for keto "Oreos." It bridges the gap between gourmet cooking and dietary restriction.
The Science of Sweeteners She Champions
Let's get nerdy for a minute. The biggest hurdle in low-carb baking is the cooling effect of erythritol. You know that weird, minty sensation in the back of your throat? It ruins a lot of desserts. Carolyn was one of the first major influencers to lean heavily into allulose and BochaSweet.
Allulose is a "rare sugar" found in figs and raisins. It’s about 70% as sweet as table sugar but has almost zero glycemic impact. More importantly, it participates in the Maillard reaction. That’s the browning process. Without it, your cookies look pale and sickly. Because she pushed these ingredients early on, the market responded. Now, you can actually find allulose in regular grocery stores. She helped move the needle on what ingredients are available to the average consumer.
The Evolution of the Brand
It’s not just a blog anymore. There are cookbooks—The Everyday Ketogenic Kitchen is basically the bible for people starting out. She has a massive YouTube presence where you can actually see the texture of the batters. This is huge because low-carb batters look "wrong" to a traditional baker. They are often thicker or more oily. Seeing her poke a cake to show the spring-back helps home cooks realize they haven't messed it up.
Her "Easy Keto" series simplified things even further. Let's be honest, sometimes you don't want to spend three hours making a multi-layered gateau. Sometimes you just want a mug cake because it’s 9:00 PM and you’re craving chocolate. She mastered that range.
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Common Misconceptions People Have About Her Recipes
One thing people get wrong is thinking they can just swap ingredients willy-nilly. If a recipe on All Day I Dream About Food calls for almond flour, don't try to use coconut flour 1:1. You'll end up with a brick. Coconut flour is like a sponge; it sucks up moisture at a rate that would baffle a physicist.
Another misconception? That these recipes are only for people on a diet.
Nope.
I’ve served her flourless chocolate cake to people who eat sugar and gluten for every meal, and they didn't suspect a thing. That is the gold standard for "alternative" baking. If you have to tell someone it’s "diet food" for them to enjoy it, you failed.
Actionable Insights for Your Kitchen
If you're ready to dive into the world of All Day I Dream About Food, don't just start clicking randomly. There’s a strategy to getting the best results.
- Invest in a Digital Scale. Carolyn writes in cups, but she often provides gram weights. Low-carb flours are notoriously difficult to measure by volume. A "cup" of almond flour can vary by 20 grams depending on how hard you pack it. That’s the difference between a moist muffin and a dry one.
- Get the "Big Three" Sweeteners. You need an erythritol-based blend (like Swerve), a pure allulose, and maybe a liquid stevia for fine-tuning. Using a blend of sweeteners often cancels out the "off" aftertastes of each individual one.
- Room Temperature Ingredients are Non-Negotiable. When you’re working with coconut oil or butter in a grain-free batter, cold eggs will seize the fat. You'll get clumps. Your cake will have holes. Just put the eggs in a bowl of warm water for five minutes.
- Read the Preamble. I know, we all want to hit the "Jump to Recipe" button. Don't do it here. The blog posts usually contain the "why" behind the technique. She’ll explain why she used a specific pan or why you shouldn't over-beat the eggs. That’s the education part.
The legacy of the site isn't just the recipes; it’s the empowerment. It’s taking the fear out of a kitchen that suddenly feels off-limits after a medical diagnosis. It turns "I can't eat that" into "How do I make that?" That shift in mindset is probably the most important thing Carolyn Ketchum ever cooked up.
Start with the basics—the pancakes or the simple biscuits. Once you see that you aren't destined for a life of cardboard, the whole world of food opens back up. It’s a pretty great way to dream.
To get started effectively, pick one "staple" food you miss the most—whether it's sandwich bread, pizza crust, or chocolate chip cookies—and master Carolyn's specific version of it. Once you have that one anchor recipe that tastes "real" to you, the psychological burden of a low-carb lifestyle virtually disappears. Stick to the brand-specific recommendations she mentions for protein powders and sweeteners for your first three attempts to ensure the chemistry works exactly as intended before you start experimenting with substitutions.