Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter and flour a 9-inch cake pan.
2. Make the cake: Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt and granulated sugar in the bottom of a large bowl. Whisk in the brown sugar and olive oil. Add the coffee (or water) and vinegar, and whisk until smooth. Pour into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for 35-45 minutes, until the top is springy and a tester inserted in the center comes out with just a few sticky crumbs (but not a wet batter). Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack. Once the cake has cooled completely, crumble it.
4. Make the “frosting”: Using electric beaters, beat the cream cheese, mascarpone and orange extract until well combined and fluffy.
5. Line two baking sheets with wax or parchment paper. Stir in the cake crumbs and combine well, until the mixture has formed a “dough” that clumps easily. Roll the dough into tablespoon-sized balls, pressing the mixture together tightly, and place them on the prepared baking sheets. Cover lightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour (alternately, you can freeze them for 15 minutes).
6. Transfer the cold cake balls to one baking sheet, so that you have one with all of the cake balls, and one empty sheet lined with parchment or wax.
7. Melt the chocolate chips, either in the microwave (in 20-second bursts, stirring in between to ensure even heating) or in a double-boiler. Carefully coat each cake ball in chocolate, transferring them to the baking sheet to cool. (I found this easiest to do in batches — melt a quarter of the chocolate, coat 15 balls, sprinkle with nonpareils, melt more chocolate, coat more balls, sprinkle, etc. Don’t melt all of the chocolate at once, in case it overheats or seizes.)
8. Let the cake balls cool completely, then try not to eat them all at once.