Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies

First cut the caramels. Make sure they’re chilled for easy chopping. Unwrap and chop each caramel in half, filling 1/2 cup. Return the cut caramels to the refrigerator and keep 1/4 cup worth whole and at room temp to soften.

Add the oats to a food processor and pulse 5-6 times. You should be left with some finely ground bits with some larger chunks.

Whisk together the oats, flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the sugars and melted butter.

Whisk in the vanilla and eggs.

Fold in the dry ingredients until combined. Then, fold in the chocolate chips.

Cover and chill the dough for 30 minutes.

When ready, preheat the oven to 350F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

Using a large cookie scoop (3 tbsp worth), scoop 4 cookies onto the large baking sheet. Then press two half pieces of the chilled caramel into the center of each cookie. Mold each cookie dough ball in your hands to help contain the caramels. Top with a sprinkle of extra chocolate chips if desired.

Bake for 12-14 minutes. The edges should be a nice golden brown and the center still slightly underdone.

Using the remaining room temperature caramels, tear in half and flatten out each half into a thin disk. Place the caramel disk into the center of an existing caramel puddle on the freshly baked cookies. Each cookie gets one half of a room temperature caramel.

The caramel will slowly melt into the cookie to create DOUBLE the caramel goodness. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt then transfer to a cooling rack. Continue to bake the rest of the dough.

Allow the cookies to cool for about 20 minutes, then enjoy!