Offsetting "hair" particles from their emitting mesh

Question

I have been following along @BlenderGuru's "Blender Beginner Tutorial Series".

At this moment of the last video, Andrew suggests duplicating the doughnut "Sprinkles" particles system from the "icing" to the plate below.

I did so and ended with the following setup:

So: the sparkles sometimes entering the icing feels realistic (both are partly melted sugar). But I do not want them to intersect with the plate.

How would you keep some random look to them while ensuring they are at a strict distance from (and parallel to) the plate mesh (half their radius typically)?

Here are the most significant particle system settings:

I shared my .blend file here: https://files.fm/u/ncqy88rn

I have made a research for similar questions on Blender Stack Exchange, but most seem to ask the opposite question (how to ensure hairs are properly rooted in their emitting mesh).

Answer 1

Answer taken from here. It's a bit of a clunky solution.

Say you have used an object as hair particle on a mesh.

To offset its position from the mesh you have to first switch from using an Object as hair particle to using a Path.

Once in the Path settings change the Start value. The larger the number the more it will be offset from the mesh. Once you have an acceptable value switch back to using an Object as hair particle.