Soak into the cake? Yes! Messy or soggy? NO!! Cake soaked with raspberry preserves is a really good thing in my opinion....especially with chocolate frosting....sigh....But alas that's not to be...

With any filling, I put a thin layer of buttercream over the surface first - plus a buttercream dam around the edge. Keeps the filling from soaking in and leaking out :)

So...layer of frosting on first cake layer, apply the jam, or filling, then more frosting over that to keep it from soaking up into the top layer? Or is that possible to do?

Which is better? The preserves or the fruit filling? That is always kind of cornstarchy to me, and less sweet.

I just had another idea...I have a can of lemon pie filling....

"She loves white cake and white frosting."

Forgive me for saying so, but you are trying very hard to avoid making what she really likes.

Jim

If you're just making a 2-layer, filled cake:
1) bottom cake layer
2) THIN layer of icing (kind of a crumb-coat, just to seal the cake)
3) filling
4) second cake layer
5) ice sides/top as desired

Preserves/fillings are a personal thing - I love a tart citrus filling made with fresh citrus (sorry, I think the canned lemon filling is pretty bad, although Solo raspberry is OK - again, just my own opinion) Don't worry about the cake not being sweet enough with a not-so-sweet-filling . . . between the cake and the frosting, believe me, it'll be sweet enough.

If you go with a soft filling, make sure not to use too much or it will squish out the edges once you put the top layer on - that's where the 'dam' helps.

I make a coconut cake each year with a thin raspberry filling and have found what I like much better than jam is to cook two bags of frozen raspberries with about a cup of sugar until thickly syrupy then strain. It's thinner than jam but for some reason tastes much better and doesn't make the cake soggy at all.
It looks prettier than jam too.
I think this is a coulis, not sure.

I've never actually tried the canned lemon filling: I just have it on hand. Not sure what I bought it for. With the snow tomorrow I don't think I'll get out. I have the boxed lemon meringue pie filling mix too.

But the raspberry is the safest bet. I don't think she'd dislike it at all, just that she's never thought of it.

I bought pink flowers and balloons, and pink writing icing, so the raspberry would go well visually. Thanks!

I will often add a layer of preserves between layers of a cake. For instance, I will make a chocolate cake with a layer of raspberry preserves as well as dark chocolate raspberry mousse. Or I will do yellow cake filled with strawberry jam, strawberry buttercream, and strawberries.

I don't ever do just jam, but adding the jam really intensifies the flavor of whatever your filling is flavored by.

Someone else must like plain white cake with white frosting because although it's not shown in the photos of Wegmans that Jim posted, that's one of their best selling signature cakes (at least at our location) - no jam or filling, just a pefect white cake.