Okay y'all I gots me a #baking question.
I want to bake cookies for my spouse. He loves caramel. I want to make caramel-flavored cookies, possibly with chocolate chips. IS IT POSSIBLE to achieve this simply by caramelizing the sugar prior to mixing it into the other wet ingredients, or would this affect the chemistry of the dough enough that I need to accommodate for it with some additional ingredient changes?
@katrani Please do! :D
@InspectorCaracal also he said he wants pics and to hear how they turn out when you do make them!
@katrani hmmm, now I must think.
Alternative ideas:
If there are any nuts your spouse likes, I could see it working if you caramellise those, with great caution and not much heat, so mostly just melting the sugar yo get it to cling to the nuts.
Another, much simpler, way would be using coconut sugar which already is caramel flavoured. In which case you might want to replace about half to two thirds of the regular sugar with a little more coconut sugar than that.
@InspectorCaracal Two ideas off the top of my head, one simple but not quite what you describe and one very like what you describe but tricky:
1️⃣ caramel bits. a Kraft product (there may be others, but kraft's is the only one I know of) that is just chocolate chip-sized pieces of caramel, which can be mixed in to any cookie dough you like.
2️⃣ a slow, dry caramelization process I've been very curious about since Serious Eats blogged about it in 2016: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2016/05/dry-toasted-sugar-granulated-caramel-recipe.html
@gladdecease OOOOOOOOOHHH!!!! THIS IS THE SOLUTION!! I have to try it! Not before he goes on this work trip, sadly, but I can make them for when he comes back!!!
@gladdecease I will let you know how the toasted sugar works out! :D
@InspectorCaracal Please do!!! 
@InspectorCaracal I have no idea but it sounds like a neat idea? I can ask a friend for you.