Coating a Cake - Does This Make Sense?

This is what happens when you try to figure out something very late at night/early in the morning. I’d like to coat the outside of a loaf cake with blueberry jam and finely shredded coconut. I’m going for something like a snowball or lamington look, depending on your frame of reference. The blue is important.

I don’t know that I can find anything other than blueberry preserves and I know the chunks of berry are a problem. If I warm the preserves and strain them or put them through a food processor, can I still coat the cake and have both the blueberry and coconut adhere?

If you have any other ideas how to accomplish this - and I’d really prefer to avoid buttercream - I’m all ears.

Thanks.

I do hope that someone can answer your specific question more directly, but I’m wondering: is it important to have the very dark blue color of the preserves? If you don’t mind lightening it a bit, you could create a blueberry glaze that would adhere nicely.

Should work fine.

it will work as long what you use is stiff, not runny.

That was pretty much my question. If I warm the preserves to strain them, would I be thinning it out too much to both hold on the cake and hold the coconut to the cake?

If the preserves are too runny when warm, fear not. They will thicken again when cooled.

That’s what I was hoping. I’ve really got to stop overthinking things and just go for it.

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instead of straining, you could whiz it in a food pro.

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maybe a bit out of the box – but I’m thinking I’d get my hands on some blueberry juice (whether purchased or created by pressing blueberries – perhaps cook them ahead of time to loosen the flesh)

Then heat that juice with clear, unflavored gelatin.

Paint the gelatin on the finished cake and refrigerate. When it’s set, paint another layer of gelatin and refrigerate – building up until it’s the thickness you want/need.

If I couldn’t find blueberries or juice, then I’d consider the jam – just thinking it’s likely sweeter than I personally would use.

Except gelatin isn’t very sticky when set, I don’t think the coconut would adhere as well as it would to jam.

That’s easy – add the coconut while the last layer of gelatin is still wet, or brush the set gelatin with wter to make it sticky enough to hold the coconut.