White Christmas Recipe Challenge: Pineapple and Coconut Cookies!

Hello!!! In this post I want to make a very cool announcement…
A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by Stéphane from verygoodrecipes.com. This is a site which brings together all the food blogs around the world, already listing more than 11,000.
He asked me if I would be interested in being one of the judges for the first international English edition of the Winter Recipe Challenge. He had already hosted several of these challenges in the French version, so I’m honored to be one of the judges for this first English edition. Thanks Stéphane for including me! It’s a huge pleasure.
So here, ladies and gentlemen, the challenge announcement:
Together with the other judges (listed at the end of this post), we’ve chosen the theme for this challenge: WHITE CHRISTMAS.
You’ll basically just have to put together a new recipe (no reposts) inspired in the White Christmas theme. Post it in your blog and link to the official challenge page (link here: http://verygoodrecipes.com/white-christmas-challenge) so that your recipe will automatically be listed as participant.
You don’t necessarily need to run a food blog to participate. Just send an email with a picture and recipe and you’ll be in!
Here’s the official challenge’s page at verygoodrecipes.com where you’ll be able to find in depth information, rules, prizes, dates, etc.
Challenge starts on December 5th and runs until December 26th.
The prizes are exclusively being sponsored by Savory Spice Shop and are quite a nice incentive to participate! If you want to know more about their products, go check out their website
As a judge, I had to prepare an example recipe to give you guys some ideas on what you can maybe prepare for the challenge.

I’ve come up with these very exotic Pineapple and Coconut cookies. Very sweet and with a special tropical twist for these holidays
What you’ll need (makes around 18 cookies):
4 big tablespoons (soy) butter
1 1/2 cup (cane) sugar
1 egg
7g vanilla sugar
150g dried pineapple in small pieces
3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
grated coconut for topping and decoration
Procedure:
Melt the butter (not until liquid, but until it becomes a bit creamy) and combine with the sugar.
Add the egg and beat well.
Throw in the vanilla sugar and dried pineapple pieces.
In a separate deep bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt.
Combine both mixtures and beat well.
Let rest for around an hour and spoon into a cookie tray covered with baking paper. Leave some space between the cookies since these will expand a bit.
Sprinkle with some of the grated coconut and bake for 20 minutes at 225°C.

Pack them with some nice ribbon or put them in a box and they’ll make a lovely gift. I enjoy home made gifts, especially when they’re either cookies or cakes, anything baked does the trick for me!
Hope you guys like this recipe and that it’s a nice motivation for all of you to participate in this challenge.
Any questions, do not hesitate to contact me and I’ll do my best to help you out
Good luck and Happy Holidays!!!