One recent morning in Catonsville, Ned Atwater was wielding his bench knife, cutting lumps of dough and shaping them into the two types of bread, Irish brown and Irish soda, that he will offer to Baltimore-area bread eaters on St. Patrick's Day.

Like many things Irish, there is a lively debate about what goes in their breads. For example, one traditional version of an Irish brown bread calls for oatmeal. For some, this bread offers a hearty taste of the old country. For others, like Atwater, the loaf can be leaden.

So Atwater's Irish brown bread recipe is lighter on the palate. It uses three different kinds of flours - bread, whole-wheat and rye - plus a chocolate malt "tea" he brews using malt secured from a store that sells beer-making supplies. He uses a whole-wheat starter, because, he says "it offers a balance between the yeast and sour flavors." The malt, he says, gives the bread "a nice bitterness in the finish like you get in a good Irish stout."

Atwater, whose shaved head and sharp features make him resemble a floury version of political pundit James Carville, passed out slices of the Irish brown bread to customers wandering into his combination bakery-storefront on Frederick Road. Rob Brennan, an architect whose office is nearby, tasted the brown bread. "It is excellent," Brennan said. "And it is seasonal, just in time for St. Patrick's Day."

Later, Atwater made his version of Irish soda bread. His recipe calls for caraway seeds - which some soda bread recipes avoid. It uses pastry flour and is dotted with a mixture of raisins, currants and a bit of orange zest. The result is sweeter and fruitier than the traditional, plain soda breads once baked in the fireplaces of Ireland. This glorified version won a 2005 tasting of Baltimore-area soda breads.

Historically, Irish soda breads were served with a meal, said Sue Gray, product development manager for King Arthur Flour, the Norwich, Vt., company that provides products and encouragement to the nation's home bakers. Years ago, she said, many Irish breads were dark because the wheat used to make the flour was minimally refined. There was, she said, a class division marked by the bread's color. The less-well off ate dark. The rich, who could afford pricier, refined flour, ate white.

Nowadays as bakers use more whole-grain flours, some breads are reverting to their historical hues, she said.

Still, bakers being bakers, they can't resist tweaking recipes. Even Gray, whose Irish soda bread recipe is a dark bread in a skillet, couldn't resist adding a few tablespoons of sugar to liven up the recipe.

Moreover, Gray had her own theory about when to add the baking soda to the buttermilk. Most soda bread bakers add the baking soda to the buttermilk and then pour the liquid ingredients into dry. But Gray keeps her baking soda dry. She mixes it with flour and other dry ingredients, and then combines it with the liquid mixture of an egg, melted butter and buttermilk.

Her method, she believes, traps more of the carbon dioxide gas in the flour. This gas is formed when the baking soda reacts with the buttermilk. A dough with more gas has more lift, she said.

One of the pleasures of making bread, Atwater said, is the rhythm of its labor. As you go through the routine of working and scaling the dough, your mind can float, he said. During the course of a recent bread-making session, Atwater, 52, told his life story.

He was born and raised in Catonsville, one of six children. His father, Ed, was a sports reporter for The Sun and often worked nights. As a result, he said, there were many school-year afternoons when his mother, Josephine, barred him and his sibling from entering the house until supper time because their dad was sleeping.

A Catonsville High School graduate, Atwater got his undergraduate degree from the University of Baltimore and then signed on as a $110-a-week apprentice under Michel Beaupin, a chef of the County Fare consortium of restaurants. "It was very traditional training, very French," Atwater said. Eventually, he "got over getting screamed at," and in the course of seven years, acquired what he called the "perfect foundation" for restaurant work. Along the way, he courted his wife, Priscilla, giving her gifts of warm loaves of bread. The couple now have three daughters ranging in age from 19 to 23.

They moved to Minnesota, where after running a successful restaurant, Forepaughs, in St. Paul, they had bad luck with a restaurant, Edwards, in Minneapolis. Returning to Baltimore, Atwater worked for Roland Jeannier at his French restaurant in the Broadview Apartments in North Baltimore before opening a wholesale baking operation in Linthicum.

While selling bread at the Saturday morning farmers' market in Waverly in 2003, he was approached by a team looking for tenants for retails shops in Belvedere Square, then under development. Atwater took a tour of the market off Northern Parkway and York roads, and at first said no. "There were puddles on the floor, pipes hanging from the walls," he said.

Then he reconsidered. "I had nothing to lose," he recalled. "And [Bill] Struever, the market developer, was great helping the tenants get started," Now, seven years later, Baltimore's appetite for bread has grown, and Atwater's business has expanded. He has retail operations at Belvedere Square, the Shops at Kenilworth and Catonsville, plus a Ploughboy Kitchen selling soups in the Bare Hills Business Park on Falls Road.

Two months ago, he and his crew dismantled the large, French-made bread oven and moved it to the rear of his new Catonsville operation, a narrow building in the 800 block of Frederick Road that once was the town's post office. Atwater said he likes this location because he is operating a business in his hometown, and because he lives nearby and can walk to work. Tucked into a row of storefronts in downtown Catonsville, the retail shop exudes a small-town feel. A potter who builds kilns dropped in for a cup of coffee and a consult on Atwater's plan to build a wood-fired oven in his home. A young mother with a toddler in tow was disappointed that the shop was sold out of Trickling Springs butter, but she was consoled with slices of Irish soda bread.

Atwater had just finished putting a batch of soda bread in the oven when he sat down in front of his shop and gazed outside at the melting snow. One of his bakers, Sophia Mines, came from the back to tell him there was a slight problem. When he had lowered the oven temperature, the oven had, as is its habit, shut down. It was quickly rebooted.

Atwater smiled. He knew that when making Irish bread, you can debate whether you make a heavy or light brown bread, you can disagree over ingredients, and you can argue whether the baking soda should be wet or dry. But it is very hard to make any bread unless you first turn on the oven.

Online Irish Buttermilk BrownMakes: 1 loaf, 8-10 servings

4 cups flour (whole-wheat flour or Irish-style whole meal flour; see note)

3 tablespoons sugar

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1large egg

1/4 cup melted butter or vegetable oil

1 tablespoons melted butter for topping

Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease a 1 1/2 - or 2-quart baking dish, 9-inch cast-iron skillet or cake pan that is at least 1 1/2 inches deep.

In a large bowl stir together the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder.

In a smaller bowl, whisk together wet ingredients: buttermilk, egg and melted butter or oil.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the liquids. Stir together until well blended and no dry spots remain: The dough will be soft and sticky.

Scoop the dough into the prepared pan, mounding in the center. Brush the top with melted butter. Wait 5 minutes for the liquid to be absorbed by the flour before baking.

Bake the bread 35-40 minutes or until it tests done (a cake tester or broom straw inserted in the center will come out clean). Remove from oven; serve warm.

Note: Irish-style flour can be difficult to find in a store. King Arthur sells it online, but it often sells out.

Source: King Arthur Flour

Nutrition informationPer serving: 249 calories, 7 grams fat, 4 grams saturated fat, 40 grams carbohydrates, 8 grams protein, 6 grams fiber, 38 milligrams cholesterol, 381 milligrams sodium

Atwater's Irish Soda BreadMakes: 1 8-inch round loaf, 8-10 servings

4 cups pastry flour (Or substitute: 2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour and 1 1/3 cup cake flour)

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon caraway seeds

3 tablespoons butter, cold, chopped

1/2 cup dried currants

1/2 cup golden raisins

1/2 teaspoon orange zest

1 teaspoon orange juice

1 1/8 cup buttermilk

1 large egg, plus 1 egg yolk (divided use)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cream

Sift dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.

In another bowl, toss the currants and raisins with the orange juice and zest and allow to soak.

Stir caraway seeds into dry ingredients.

Fold chopped butter into dry ingredients.

Whisk the buttermilk, egg and baking soda together, then add to the bowl with the fruit.

Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, mixing only until the dough is thoroughly combined. Do not overmix.

Gently press the dough into a greased 8-inch diameter round pan.

Whisk the egg yolk and cream together, and brush the top of the bread with this mixture.

Bake in a 325-degree oven until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about an hour and a half. Turn bread out of the pan immediately upon removing from the oven. Allow to cool completely before serving.

Source: Ned Atwater

Nutrition informationPer serving: 302 calories, 5 grams fat, 3 grams saturated fat, 57 grams carbohydrates, 7 grams protein, 1 gram fiber, 53 milligrams cholesterol, 284 milligrams sodium

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