It is one of the most complicated recipes you can make in your life, but also one of the most gratifying. Be careful not to miss out any of the steps or any of the ingredients. This is how Exelino Sierra did it, and this is the recipe followed by more than two million entrepreneurs served by BBVA Microfinance Foundation in five countries across Latin America.
- Slowly mix courage and hard work together until you get a smooth batter. Add dedication, self-discipline and a pinch of cacao.
- Transfer the mixture into a mold and put in the oven to consolidate everything you have already achieved. It didn’t work out first time? Don’t worry! That’s part of the process and it’s worth starting over again.
- Repeat the steps, this time with support from Bancamía, the Foundation’s institution, which has been cooking recipes like these for ten years. Let yourself be guided by them, so they can help you see the results very soon.
- Add the new ingredients: microcredits and the training you have received, beat everything together, take the mold again and watch patiently how it bakes into perfection.
- More importantly, the outcome tells a lot about the time you needed to prepare it.
- Don’t forget to save part of the success of your recipe; it will help you when you most need it.
- Now you know how to cook your dreams just the way Exelino and many entrepreneurs like him do. You simply have to practice over and over again to keep on making progress.
Jordi Roca, the well-known pastry chef and owner, with his two brothers, of El Celler de Can Roca, one of the best restaurants in the world, was witness to the role that cacao has played in the life of Exelino Sierra.
This entrepreneur, supported by the Foundation in Colombia, shared his recipe for success, explained above, with Jordi. On his land, where there once was a coca plantation, now there is only cacao, the fruit which has enabled him to prosper and offer a future to his children.
La experiencia de Jordi Roca y del periodista gastronómico Ignacio Medina ha quedado inmortalizada en ‘Casa Cacao’, un libro que se acaba de presentar en España y que próximamente llegará a Colombia y a Perú.
Jordi Roca’s experience, and that of the food writer Ignacio Medina, has been immortalized in Casa Cacao, a book he launched recently in Spain and which will soon be reaching Colombia and Peru.
