Last Friday, Scharffen Berger hosted a bakery crawl in San Francisco for the food media and a few food bloggers (that’s me) to inspire us to create a cookie sandwich as part of its annual Chocolate Adventure Contest (with this year’s co-sponsor TuttiFoodie.com).

You know what’s inspiring? $25,000.

That’s the grand prize for the winner who submits a recipe that includes a Scharffen Berger product and at least one of the 12 “adventure” ingredients, which includes corn meal, fresh ginger, tequila, sweet potato, and yerba mate tea.

We were inspired by the talented bakers we visited, including Top Chef Just Desserts winner Yigit Pura, who demonstrated his cookie sandwich creation (a pasilla spiced cookie sandwich with chocolate ganache) and then showed off his new Tout Sweet Patisserie at Macy’s Union Square.

When you think about it, any filling sandwiched between cookies (or cake-like cookies) would qualify. Think whoopie pies, alfajores, or even smores!

After our crawl, my mind started strategizing what I’d enter. Even though I’m not a regular baker, I’m up for the challenge because, hey, did I mention the $25,000 in winnings? I won’t say what I’m thinking of right now, but I will say one word – tequila, baby! (Shoots, that’s two words.)

Click here to find out more about the contest and secret adventure ingredients, and then put together your recipe before the January 2, 2013 deadline. Challenge extended. Challenge accepted.

We climbed on a trolley to visit bakeries on our crawl

Classic chocolate macarons from Miette, using the adventure ingredient of sumatra coffee in the chocolate ganache filling

Cookies at the Goody Goodie Cafe in SOMA, my first visit there

Goody Goodie offered up an inspiring Oil-Cured Olive Chocolate Wafer with the adventure ingredient of cacao nibs and then filled with a preserved lemon cream with fresh basil leaves. Just so innovative.

Juliet Pries, owner of Ice Cream Bar in Cole Valley, treated us to her Bee’s Knees banana and cacao nibs ccokies with honey and milk chocolate ice cream (pictured at very top of this post).

Yigit Pura demonstrates his cookie sandwich at the Macy’s kitchen

Pura’s Pasilla spiced cookie sandwich with pasilla chili-infused ganache and cacao nibs (which seems to be the popular adventure ingredient)