David Clawson said the main advice he could give someone who wants to start competing is to practice. "It's not as hard as it seems," he said. The Clawsons belong to the Storm Mountain Dutch Oven chapter, where members meet and cook a pot-luck dinner once a month. The two got into Dutch-oven cooking as Boy Scouts and have been competing as a team for two years.

The lobster isn't that hard to cook, said Scott Clawson. "You get the water steaming and put it in for 10 minutes. The hard part is preparing it piggyback style; that took us about an hour. The beef is really hard because you can pass up the temperature really easy and overcook it."

David Clawson honed his bread-baking skills while serving an LDS mission in Russia. "I learned to like bread there, and I made my own bread all the time," he said. Why Philly Cheese Steak? "Because Scott served a mission in Philly," he added.

The duo also started with quality ingredients. For the Cedar City competition, "We looked online at Omaha Steaks and ordered their most expensive products," Scott Clawson said.

After that win, they asked Omaha Steaks to sponsor their World Championships entry, and the company sent them the meat.

Teams had come from as far as Oklahoma, Texas, California and Oregon to compete in the cook-off. To qualify, they had to either win a sanctioned cook-off or be nominated by a chapter where there was no qualifying tournament. Some teams were eliminated in preliminary cook-offs on Thursday and Friday.

This is the 22nd year for the cook-off. It started at Utah State University in Logan and moved to the Festival of the American West in Wellsville. Then in 2002, the event was moved to the Sportsmen's Exposition.

IDOS is a nonprofit organization whose main purpose is "the preservation and promotion of the skills and art of Dutch-oven cooking." The organization's Web site is found at www.idos.org.

LAYERED CHOCOLATE CAKE WITH STRAWBERRY CREAM FILLING

Cake:

1 1/2 cups butter-flavored shortening

1 2/3 cups sugar

6 eggs

2 2/3 cup flour

6 tablespoons cocoa

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup hot water

Beat the shortening with the sugar. Add one egg at a time; make sure to mix well between each egg. Mix in flour, cocoa and vanilla extract. Add the hot water and mix well. Pour into 2 10-inch Dutch ovens that have been greased and dusted with cocoa. Cook for about 30 minutes with 12 coals on top and 8 coals on the bottom until toothpick comes out with just a few moist crumbs on it. Do not overbake. Cool the cakes and cut each in half, horizontally.

Strawberry Topping:

4 cups strawberries

1 1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup Ultra Gel (a thickening product)

Juice of one lemon