PEMBERVILLE — It may be tempting to break out a bottle of burgundy to accompany a slice of Wine Cake, but stick to coffee or milk.

Penny Truman shared her recipe, which does have wine — sherry — in the cake and the glaze.

Truman said that you can taste the sherry in the cake, but it’s not dry and is a little sweet, thanks to a sugary glaze. Serve the cake with whipped cream or a dollop of ice cream, for some more sweetness.

The recipe is from her grandmother, Helen Pickering, who used to make it for Christmas. She baked one each for all six children, plus a smaller loaf-sized one for the grandchildren and their families, Truman said.

“I think she started in November,” she said. “That was her thing. We were always disappointed if we didn’t get any of that cake.”

Through the years, Truman has made one tweak to the recipe.

“The only thing that I have adjusted is I added a little more sugar. She called for a half a cup of sugar and I’ve added a half a cup of sugar plus two tablespoons. And that’s for the glaze.

“It’s really kind of an easy cake to make. You just throw everything in a bowl and beat it up,” Truman said.

There are other things she’d rather do than spend time in the kitchen, she said with a chuckle.

“I’m not much of a baker, but this I can handle,” Truman said of the Wine Cake. “If you say go out to eat or cook a meal, I’m out the door.”

She and her husband of 54 years, Jon, take a lot of day trips south to Ada where he grew up or Sauder Village, in Archbold, where they like to eat at the Barn Restaurant.

Truman is retired, after running the Pemberville office for her husband, who was a chiropractor in the village for over 40 years.

They met while teenagers attending Rogers High School in Toledo.

Shortly after they married and started their family, the Trumans started looking for a practice in a small town. Jon had been working in Toledo.

“We decided to move to Pemberville. The doctor that he was in practice with in Toledo knew the chiropractor in Pemberville, and he was wanting to retire.”

They moved into the house that was off of the Pemberville office. They built a home outside the village 44 years ago.

The Trumans have three children; their two sons live in Bowling Green and their daughter is in Canton.

Truman recently made the Wine Cake for the Pemberville Mental Culture Club, which meets in the village monthly between September and May, usually at the library.

“It is a club that actually started in 1901,” Truman said. “It started as a self-education club for women in the area, in Pemberville.

“At that time, most women didn’t go to college —they were at home with their families. They started this club to educate themselves on various subjects.”

The women take turns presenting programs.

“Way back in the day, they used to take one subject for the whole season,” Truman said.

Most recently, Truman and Karen Creps did a talk on Women Spies in the Civil War.

“It was pretty interesting, and there were a lot of women who dressed as men and went into battle, as well. I think they guessed at over 400 women. But there were a lot of spies, too, that worked on both sides.”