Cake decoratoring question: experts please!

[therespectablecardigan]

I need to make a coloured cake for a party, but we don't like butter icing, almond paste or any of the other traditional cake coverings. I make a fairly good fresh cream/fruit cake.

My question is: can I pipe fresh cream swirls to cover the side of the cake, or will it all slide down? I usually add a tbspn of icing sugar to my cream and when refrigerated it goes fairly stiff. I'll need to add a few drops of food colouring too. Is this going to work? If not are there any alternatives?

What about royal icing, I struggle not to eat the lot before icing the cake!

I think if you brushed the cake with a thin layer of melted apricot jam first to give the cream extra grip and refrigerated it overnight, it would work.
I also hate all butter cream/frosting , so it’s either cream cheese or ganache in our house. I wonder if a bit of cream cheese would give your whipped cream more body? I think it would be nice and would take the colour.

What about white chocolate ganache?

Basically double cream and melted white chocolate, when it's cooled you can whip it to a buttercream like consistency and because it's white chocolate you can add gel food colouring.

I don’t think cream swirls would hold their shape on the side of a cake, sorry. I often see cream cakes with a coating of coconut flakes or sprinkles on the sides (jam first to crumb coat, then cream). Coconut takes colour very well and you get sprinkles in different colours from specialist shops.

Thank you for all of the suggestions, will have a think about what might be an option, I really like the thought of adding some cream cheese.