Recently I happened on a calendar of local Dutch oven events' and noticed that one of them was happening only 10 minutes from my home, so decided to go and check it out.  It was held at Cabela's, in Lehi, Utah and was sponsored by the International Dutch Oven Society.

There were about 8 or 9 teams who were competing for prizes.  I'm guessing the format of this type of cook-off is pretty standard, but in case there are some who aren't familiar with what happens, each team had two people, and had to cook three dishes, a main dish, a yeast bread, and a dessert, all done only in dutch ovens.

In this particular cook-off, all dishes had to be turned in at the same time, so things were kind of frantic and stressful trying to get each dish done at the same, but correct time (the turn in time).  I believe that they started setting up at 7:30, started cooking at 8:30, and turn-in time was 1:30.

There were a variety of dishes, ranging from dutch oven pork tenderloin to dutch oven prime rib, even saw the beginnings of a dutch oven ravioli, pizza bread, potato bread, pies, cakes, and all sorts of delicious looking dishes.

One of the challenges on this particular day was that it was cold and rainy, eventually turning to snow (I suppose that's why this cook-off used the name Yukon).   Although all the teams were under the roof area of Cabelas, I wondered what they did to get their yeast bread to rise.  There were a number of different solutions.

One group had a dutch oven dome that is made by Volcano or Camp Chef.  It is basically made out of the same material that is used by forest fighters for protection if they are overrun by a forest fire.  It is insulated and reflective on the inside, so it holds heat pretty well.

This team had their bread rising in a dutch oven that had 2-3 coals underneath and then everything was covered by one of these dutch oven domes.  It trapped the heat, kept the wind away and allowed the bread to rise.

Another group had a garbage can with a few coals inside.  There were holes cut into the sides of the garbage can, near the bottom, to allow air flow.  I think they had a small platform of some kind inside the garbage can to keep the dutch oven off of the coals.

Like the tent, it helped trap the warm air, and kept the wind off of the bread, allowing it to rise.  The garbage can could also have been used to hold three stacked dutch ovens in the event that it was really windy outside, making it difficult to keep the dutch ovens hot.

All in all, it was an interesting first trip to a dutch oven event.  The International Dutch Oven Society hosts a World Championship Cook Off in March in Utah, with a larger Dutch oven gathering, complete with demos, classes, samplings and the whole works in April.  I'm hoping to go to both of those and see what I can learn.

P.S.  To see more information about Dutch Oven Cooking, see my Dutch Oven Cooking Tips and Dutch Oven Recipes.