Chocolate chip cookie FAIL

I am perhaps overly enamored by caramelization.

It just seems so magical. So why not caramelize sugar every time you use it? What could happen?

I'll tell you what could happen, you could pre-ruin your cookies. That's what could happen.

To be fair there are more than one possible places this particular batch may have gone wrong:

• I let the sugar get too hot so I wen't past the soft caramel stage.
• I didn't know how much to adjust the baking time of the cookies so they may have needed much less time to bake than the original recipe. I didn't have a reference for what the internal temperature of a well baked chocolate chip cookie is. A cursory look on the web was inconclusive. 
• And maybe the whole idea is just a false start. The sugar/butter/egg chemistry might be doing something useful that I am thwarting by pre-cooking and changing the state of the sugar. 

Next Time: What did I learn ...

• Sugar can get up to 390 degrees before you know it.
• Once caramelized it does not behave like granular sugar and refuses to "cream" with butter and eggs. 
• When experimenting in uncharted territory, perhaps starting with a smaller batch would be in order. 
• Maybe the idea of adding the taste of caramel should be approached differently. Perhaps I could make and cool some caramel and introduce it at the end of the mix in place of some of the chocolate chips....