I tried a cake this weekend and wanted a raspberry filling. I've seen many posts that said just to add jam to your buttercream to get the flavor you'd like so I added raspberry jam to mine. I added enough to get the flavor / color I wanted (about 1/4 of a 12 oz. jar). Then my filling was too thin and I was afraid it wouldn't hold up. The only way I know to fix that is to add more powdered sugar, so I did, but to add enough sugar to firm it back up detracted from the raspberry flavor and it got too sweet. What was I doing wrong?

i haver added strawberry jam to mine and it turned out fine. i added just enough to make it the consistency of filling not frosting and whipped it with my ka. it turned out really light and fluffy. i had a little left over and it seperated after a while but stayed fine in the cake.

maybe you didnt whip it enough??hth

When the filling is too thin, you can just make a dam with your buttercream, around the cake. It makes the filling stop from leaking through. I had one lady that wanted only jam as a filling, that what I did and it worked fine. hth

I have found that preserves are thicker than jam. I just used a strawberry jam and added it to icing and it was thin, just like you are saying. I buy the perserves from Randall's (their brand) and it is so thick just as if you made it yourself and it is wonderful. Again, I usually don't add it to the buttercream .

It's fine if the filling is thinner than icing, just use a really thick dam on stiff buttercream to hold it in. Also, because I want to really be able to taste the fruit. I spread the cake with just the jam to get a good layer of fruit on there and then I put the buttercream mixed with jam on top of that. Also, if you can find 100 percent fruit spread that doesn't have any sugar added it works really well because it's not overly sweet to begin with so it really makes a good filling, but sometimes these are hard to find with much variety.

Thanks for all of the replies. I will be experimenting and perfecting my jam technique!