PHOTOS BY LEEANN K PHOTOGRAPHY.

Pretty please with sugar on top, read this love story.

Married couple Surrae Shield and Rachel Madden run River Road Sprinkle Co., an Armstrong County-based business that creates finishing touches for desserts. 

Inside a rented studio space in Wattersonville, they hand-dye soft pearls of pressed sucrose that taste sweet and, unlike many mass-produced varieties, won’t break your teeth or the bank. (And for the record, Shield says jimmies are for ice cream and sprinkles are for everything else.)

“There are three categories of sprinkles — really boring, really expensive and really hard; I think we’ve managed to avoid all of those things,” says Shield, who designs sheet cakes for supermarket chains across the country. “We like what we do and it fits a niche.”

River Road offers 46 solid colors in three pearl sizes, finely ground Glimmer Shimmer Sugar and mixes for all occasions. As they head into their busiest season, Shield and Madden are cranking out new autumnal blends such Jack-O-Lantern Blues and Candy Cornucopia. 

Sprinkles dyed with natural ingredients are also available but take longer to make, and patrons can request custom sprinkle combos.

The tiny toppings are made when an order is placed and packaged in eco-friendly glass jars or rice paper pouches. They’re sold at stores in Chicago, Washington, D.C. and California, on Etsy and their website. Their biggest sales and inspiration come from brand ambassadors known as “River Roadies.” These home bakers and Instagram influencers hail from Pittsburgh (winner of the Food Network’s Holiday Baking Championship: Gingerbread Showdown) to Seattle and beyond. 

And it all started with a layover in Dallas.

Thanks to Hurricane Barry, a storm that battered the Gulf Coast in 2019, Shield was stuck in Texas for the weekend, so she downloaded a dating app. 

“And I met my favorite person in the world,” says Shield, a Jeannette native. Madden, a freelance musician, grew up in Colorado.

After hatching their festive business plan during the pandemic, they got married in April 2022 and moved into Shields’ childhood home on River Road. 

Will they ever add a brick-and-mortar bakery to their granulated trade?

“I don’t think so,” Shield says. “I think we have a really special item. I enjoy baking but I enjoy making sprinkles more.”