I love to freeze these dough balls and take them straight from the freezer and bake them. When I bake them frozen, I end up cooking them about 14 to 15 minutes. When I bake these after just being chilled for 30 minutes, I bake them for 11 to 12 minutes because I like them to be more on the gooey/soft side. If you want them to be slightly crispy on the outside then bake them 14 minutes (like I did for the cookies pictures, but really meant to cook them only 12 minutes, didn’t hear the timer -- lol!).
If you don’t have dark brown sugar, you can use light brown sugar and these will still be delicious. The dark brown sugar just gives these cookies a little bit richer, deeper flavor. I always keep a bag of dark brown sugar on hand just because I have a few cookies recipes that I use the dark brown sugar in.