Our 2026 Cookie Walk is on Saturday, December 12th from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. This annual fundraiser helps to subsidize the other Social Committee activities throughout the year. We are looking forward to the yummy cookies and candies you are baking for our sale this year. Please drop off your wonderful items at Culemans Fellowship Hall on Friday, December 11th from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. The north doors will be open for you to enter the building.
Can you help at the Cookie Walk this year? Watch the bulletin for different opportunities. If you are able to help at the sale or put a sign in your yard, please email Connie at sixverybusypeople@gmail.com or call (309) 230-4610.
Sacred Heart is known for our Belgian cookies, so we met up with Rita Van Raes who is known for the Belgian lukkens she bakes for the Cookie Walk every year.
Connie: When did you learn how to make these cookies?
Rita: I learned to make the lukken by making them with my mother, Margaret Van Raes. It was always a major undertaking just before Christmas. Mom learned to make them from my grandmother, Adella Van Raes. The irons used to make them are traditionally passed down through the family and are made of cast iron. They are placed over the burner on the stove and turned to "fry" one side at a time. There are newer electric irons available, but they don't have the same flavor as the older, well-seasoned cast iron ones. I have both my mother's iron and my own iron. They have been in use for over 80 years (mom's) and over 60 years (mine). Sadly, we don't know what became of grandma's iron.
Connie: Besides what you bake for the Cookie Walk, how many of these cookies do you bake every year?
Rita: I make two batches each year: one for the Cookie Walk and one for my family. Each batch makes between 22 and 25 dozen cookies. That works out to approximately 44 to 50 dozen cookies. (this is 528 - 600 cookies!)
Connie: Do you have any special memories of making these cookies?
Rita: Perhaps my favorite memory about making lukken involved the ones that got overdone and had to be rejected. We always kept the kitchen door closed when frying the lukken to keep the "smoke" from spreading into the rest of the house. My dad loved the "rejects" and would come to the kitchen door after we had been frying for a while and ask rather meekly and hopefully, if there were any "rejects" yet. I'm pretty sure my mom deliberately burned a few just to make him happy.
Connie: Would you be willing to share the recipe?
Rita: Sure and it is in the Taste of Sacred Heart – Recipes for Recalling Our Past cookbook too!
Lukken (Adella Van Raes’ Recipe)
1 pound unsalted butter, melted & cooled---Do Not Substitute
6 eggs
1 pound white sugar (2 cups)
1 pound dark brown sugar (3 cups), sifted to remove lumps
2 pounds flour (6 ½ to 7 cups)
Pinch of salt
4 oz. bourbon (Jack Daniels)
Melt and cool butter. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add sugars and mix well. Add salt. Sift in flour alternately with bourbon. Mixture will become too thick for an electric mixer and will need to be stirred by hand. Mix thoroughly each time before adding more flour. Remove all lumps and streaks of flour. Do not add too much flour. It will make the cookies taste pasty. Better to have less flour than pasty tasting cookies. Cover tightly and refrigerate at least overnight. When ready, roll dough into small balls between the size of a nickel and the size of a quarter. Place balls on cookie sheets and cover tightly. Refrigerate at least overnight. If using an electric lukken iron, follow the directions for that type of iron. If using a cast iron, stove top iron: grease iron plates and preheat them on both sides. Test with a small piece of white bread. If the bread toasts to a golden brown in 12 to 14 seconds, the iron is hot enough. Take the dough balls from the refrigerator. Slightly flatten a dough ball and place it on the iron ever-so-slightly off center to the hinge side. Fry on each side for 12 to 14 seconds. Carefully remove to another cookie sheet to cool.
This recipe makes between 22 and 25 dozen lukken.
N.B.: If using a stove top iron, be sure to ventilate the kitchen well. Frying this many lukken will release a lot of residue into the air. If you have a range top fan, be sure to use it.
It should be noted that the dough is very temperamental. It must be kept cool enough to handle when placing on the iron or the cookies will not turn out right. I have mine rolled out the day before frying on two large cookie sheets and have to rotate the sheets in and out of the refrigerator to keep them at the right temperature/texture. This is the reason that these cookies are only made at Christmas time.