The ultimate compliment that you could give in a Christmas-focused food review is “please get me this for Christmas”. And that’s exactly the reaction that my teenage food tester had to the Salted Caramel Malt Balls by Stockley’s. Packaged in a champagne shaped plastic bottle, these “posh salted caramel Maltesers” are being swiftly devoured, repeatedly labelled as “so good” and met with a hint of worry that they’re running out.

It’s a testament to the sheer size of the bottle that there are any left at all.

Stockley’s is a 106-year-old British Confectionary Mastermind, honing small batch, handcrafted methods to create traditional sweets in Lancashire. It was created by Malcolm Stockley in 1918, after his return from the First World War, and has remained an important part of the region. Knowing their history made it all the more exciting to be trying their “so good” Salted Caramel Malt Balls and the Sweet Shop Collection box that came with it.

To expand slightly on the teenage review (though I think that’s the highest compliment one can give), the Salted Caramel Malt Balls are crunchy malt balls covered in salted caramel blond chocolate with a shiny bronze finish. For the ease of comparison, they’re a slightly saltier, crunchier version of the infamous Malteser – also referred to as “the posh version”, greatly helped by the Champagne packaging.

The Sweet Shop Collection box is made up of eight plastic jars of classic British sweets: Cola Drops (with chewy centres), Pear Drops, Lemon Sherbets, Chocolate Limes, Mint Humbugs, Chocolate Butter Fudge, Caramel Fudge and dreamy Berries & Cream. Though as the jars weren’t labelled, we all had extra fun working out the flavours of the sweets.

The Pear Drops, Lemon Sherbets and Berries & Cream are currently down to their final few at the time of writing this, crowning them the clear winners of the taste test. Pear Drops being my personal favourite. The Cola Drops are weaker in flavour and don’t quite have the strong cola aroma that you might expect, but that hasn’t stopped them from being devoured too.

The little squares of Caramel Fudge hint at the utter deliciousness of their larger tubs of fudge. And the Chocolate Butter Fudge has been added to the Christmas List of a friend who’s a fan of dark chocolate due to its earthy cocoa-rich flavour.

As you can expect, these gift sets are just a small glimpse into the catalogue of Stockley’s sweet empire, which is lovingly spread in sweet shops across the UK. Though the aesthetic benefit of these gifts is that a part of my kitchen now looks like a sweet shop, just in time for Christmas – well, if the jars stay full for long enough.

You can buy the Salted Caramel Malt Balls and the Sweet Shop Collection from stockleys-sweets.co.uk.