Here's a life skill that everyone, and I mean everyone, needs: how to make rainbow candy dessert bowls.

These confections are woven from candy, and are a perfectly magical setting for all of your favorite desserts. You could fill them with whipped cream or marshmallow fluff for a light and sweet cloud-like treat, or you could place an entire cupcake inside. They could even be used as decorative candy bowls at parties for a sweet table setting.

Originally published on CakeSpy.

Step 1: Assemble Your Ingredients and Supplies.

Supplies:

1 cupcake tin

double boiler

a spatula for stirring, a spoon, and a knife

Ingredients (Per basket)

10 strips Airheads XTremes Sweetly sour candy, in berry rainbow

3 small Airheads candies, unwrapped (choose similar colors for best results)

1 teaspoon water

2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

Step 2: Weave Your Candy

Grab a work surface and let's get weaving. First, grab yourself 10 strips of the rainbow colored Airheads Extreme candy. Line five strips side by side, so that the ends are facing you.

Leaving an inch of space on the top, begin to weave one of the remaining strips of candy horizontally, over and under the vertical rows. Grab your next piece, and weave it directly below the previous one, weaving under-and-over so that it forms a basketweave pattern. Continue alternating with the remaining strips. The photo-collage of the process may help if that all seems confusing.

Step 3: Melt Your Remaining Candy

OK, set this woven piece of rainbow art to the side for the moment.

Now, set up your double boiler. Place three Airheads candies (the regular kind) in the top, along with the water and confectioners' sugar. Heat on medium, stirring every few minutes. While at first the sugar, water, and candy will remain quite separate, as it melts, the mixture will become thick. You'll see now why it was a good idea to use candy in the same color scheme--the color melts together. It might be ugly if you use different colored candies (like I did the first time) but it will taste fine. Promise. But even so, this won't be the prettiest part of the process.

Once the mixture is lightly bubbly, remove from heat. You'll want to work without hesitating at this point as the candy is easier to use while still quite liquid.

Step 4: Seal the Woven Candy With the Melted Candy.

Gently spoon the candy in the center of your basketweave square. Use a spoon or knife to spread it to cover the woven portion as thoroughly as possible.

At this point, I decided that rather than slice off the extra bits, I would fold over the non-woven portions. This is easier to do if you start with the pieces which are "under". They will adhere easily to the still sticky candy. The four corners, I sliced off. Give it about five minutes for the candy to set slightly, and transfer the candy bundle to your cupcake tin. Gently place it, centered, on top of one of the cups. Using your fingers, gently finesse it into a bowl shape. Once again, here it all is in pictures. My apologies again for the weird melted candy color.

Step 5: Let the Bowls "set"

To help the bowls "set", I put them in the freezer (right in the cupcake pan) for about 5 to 10 minutes. They easily popped out of the cupcake tin at this point.

You can repeat the process with as many bowls as you want to make.

Step 6: Enjoy!

Fill the bowls with whatever toppings you'd like. If you're not using them immediately, keep them in the cupcake tin so that they will retain their shape.