Brown butter in a small saucepan until just past amber-brown colored. Move to a small heatproof bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour. Butter should be solid but still soft and not completely chilled.
Move brown butter to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk. Add both sugar to the bowl and beat for 10 minutes until thoroughly creamed to about the texture of buttercream. You may need to stop the mixer occasionally and scrape the sides of the bowl down.
Once the butter and sugar are well creamed, beat in egg, milk, and vanilla. Scrape down sides of the bowl, and mix again to make sure everything is combined.
Sift in the flour, salt, and baking soda. Mix in until just combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and check that there are no loose dry ingredients at the bottom of the bowl.
Fold in the oats, pecans, chocolate chips, and caramel bits.
Scoop the dough into portions using a #40 scoop. Cover and refrigerate for 24-48 hours.
Preheat the oven to 325ºF.
Place 12 portions of cookie dough on a lined baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes. Repeat until you've used all your dough balls.
Optional shaping technique: While the cookies are still hot, using a large round cookie cutter, swirl the cookies to make each cookie perfectly round and pat the top down lightly with the back of a spatula. See blog for more details.
Optional aesthetic note: After you've shaped your cookies, press extra chocolate chips into the top of your cookies to make them look extra loaded. The chips will melt slightly.
Allow the cookies to cool on the sheet pan for 5 minutes before moving to a cooling rack to cool completely before storing.
Notes
Notes: If you cannot find caramel bits in the baking section, individually wrapped caramel cubes work great. Unwrap the cubes and cut each one into 8 pieces. You may need to coat your knife in non-stick spray to make this easier. Continue until you have 1/2 cup of caramel pieces.
Keyword Brown Butter, Caramel, Chocolate Chip, Cookies, Oats, Pecan