I got this originally from a book of Scottish recipes which had a remarkable number of variants on shortbread.   This is clearly a fancy, festive version.   Whether it would remain recognisable to someone from Yetholm, however, is another matter.   Over the years I have increased the proportion of nuts, peel, and ginger until the result is a very rich recipe indeed.
        I first made this many years ago; and it proved instantly popular with everyone else in the family.   I never have cared for it myself:   its chunks of peel and crystallized ginger are far too strong for my taste.   My father, however, adored it.   Every year, when I was discussing what I planned to make for Christmas, he always asked that this be one of the things I made.   “Yum, Yetholm bannock!” he would say, with a big grin.   As a result, it has always been one of the first things I make each December.
        I have long since become so accustomed to making it that it would seem a very strange Christmas indeed if I were not to make Yetholm bannock—for everyone else to eat.

Ingredients

Directions

Making the Dough
Beat together the butter, egg yolks, and golden syrup.   Add the flour, sugar, baking powder, ground ginger, half of the flaked almonds, and all of the lemon or citron peel.   Knead the mixture together, and then divide it in two equal portions.

Further Preparation
Chop the crystallized ginger into small chunks.
        Line an eight inch square baking tin with aluminum foil, grease it, and dust it with flour.   Press one half of the dough into the bottom of the tin.   Sprinkle it evenly with the crystallized ginger.   Cover this with the rest of the dough, pressing it in an even layer, and smoothing the top.
        Brush the top with beaten egg.   Sprinkle it evenly with the remaining half of the flaked almonds, pressing them gently so that they stick to the egg.   Sprinkle with sugar.

Baking
Bake at 325°F for forty-five minutes, until golden brown.   Let cool in the baking tin on a wire rack.   When cool, cut into squares about one to one-and-a-half inches across.

Makes upwards of sixty squares,
depending how they are cut.