A $25,000 cookie -- where’s the recipe?

A cookie worth $25,000? Merry Graham of Santa Clarita has won $25,000 for her Margarita Moon Pie cookie recipe. Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker named Graham the winner of its Chocolate Adventure Contest 2012 sandwich cookie edition. The contest challenges bakers to develop a sandwich cookie using Scharffen Berger chocolate and at least one of 12 pre-selected “adventure ingredients.”

So what’s in this cookie that’s worth a ridiculously big sum of money? Some lime, chocolate and a little booze, of course. Graham combined handmade tequila-infused marshmallow with crystallized lime sprinkles and sandwiched that between two graham-flour and Scharffen Berger Unsweetened Natural Cocoa Powder cookies. The sandwich is covered in a layer of melted Scharffen Berger 70% Bittersweet Chocolate with a little coconut oil.

Graham received $25,000, a custom selection of Scharffen Berger chocolate and signed copies of Alice Medrich’s “Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies” and John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg’s “The Essence of Chocolate,” signed by John Scharffenberger, but we stopped paying attention after the $25,000.

To judge the cookie contest, Scharfen Berger enlisted the help of Food Network’s “The Next Iron Chef” two-time runner-up Elizabeth Falkner; award-winning cookbook author and chocolate expert Alice Medrich (side note: just wanted to say “chocolate expert” again); food photographer and MattBites blogger Matt Armendariz; Bakerella blogger and “Cake Pops” author Angie Dudley and Tablehopper.com founder Marcia Gagliardi.

Ten contestants were also honored for their recipes and received Scharffen Berger engraved Apple iPads. All the winning recipes will be featured on ChocolateAdventureContest.com, ScharffenBerger.com and TuttiFoodie.com.

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