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Harriet Sprinkles offers baked treats
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Harriet Sprinkles employee Susan Tropea rolled flat dough that she would make cut out cookies from.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Harriet Sprinkles employee Laura Szorady helped a pair of customers ring up their purchases.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Harriet Sprinkles offers a variety of delicious treats for purchase, such as cupcakes, cookies and brownies.
By TIM CLEVELAND
Ever since she opened her baking shop called Harriett Sprinkles on Nov. 21, Melanie Jones has been striving to give the area a taste of down home treats and sweets.
The shop, located at 82 North Main St., offers a wide variety of cupcakes, coffee cakes, biscote, cheesecakes, cream puffs, eclairs, plus even dog biscuits and jelly, all made from scratch by Jones and her five employees.
Jones said making her dream of owning her own business come true took a lot of years of work and sacrifice.
“I’ve baked my whole life, spent 10 years in the army and served in the first Gulf War in Desert Storm, went to nursing school, worked as a nurse for quite a while,” she said. “We moved around for my husband’s job and we came back to the area. We’ve been back here for six years now. We just decided that this was the time.”
Once she found the North Main Street location, Jones had to go through extra steps due to the history of the building.
“We purchased the building in July and we took six months and we completely renovated,” she said. “The floors, walls, ceiling, light fixtures, the electrical work, the kitchen, everything. The exterior as well, the window boxes. We had to go in front of zoning to get everything approved, to have everything be historically accurate because this area is considered historical. We had to go in front of the review board to make sure that everything was accurate to the area.”
The front half of the building and second floor is dated from 1845 and was the home of Ethel Hull Miller, the author who wrote the book White Saddle. That book was required reading for quite some time in the area.
Joe Loree of Poland has been a repeat customer since Harriett Sprinkles opened and he had nothing but rave reviews for the business.
“The warm and friendly owner and help that they have here,” he said of what he likes about Harriet Sprinkles. “The fine baked good, cookies, cakes and such. I’ve tried just about everything they have here. My family all loves it.”
Jones said her biggest seller thus far has been her scones, which come in a variety of flavors, including cranberry pecan and chocolate, apricot white chocolate, blueberry lemon and strawberry and white chocolate.
“We sell out of them nearly every day,” she said.
Another popular item Jones sells is hummingbird cake.
“That is a really old recipe,” she said. “It’s been in my family for quite some time. It’s a cake with banana and pineapple and pecans. That you just don’t see anymore. It’s really faded away. It’s an old style recipe.”
Jones said things have been going well since Harriett Sprinkles opened, but admitted that there are both positives and negatives to running her own business.
“The positives are meeting the community, having so many people come out,” she said. “Them seeing things that we’ve brought back that a lot of the area big-box stores don’t necessarily carry. The negatives are the long hours.”
In the future, Jones hopes to see more of the community and people from surrounding areas stopping in the store to see what Harriet Sprinkles has to offer.