Friends

Candy & Cupcake Ferris Wheel

A candy-coated wheel that actually turns, with cupcake cars that got me grinning.

Brick Rated Score

3.9/5

Set 42700 · 2026

Pieces602

Minifigs3

Year2026

Set number42700

Check price on Amazon

Affiliate link. We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

The verdict

This is one of those Friends sets that looks like pure sugar rush on the box and then surprises you with a genuinely satisfying turning mechanism underneath.

The cupcake gondolas and the little working ring toss game are the standouts, and at 602 pieces it fills a shelf nicely without eating a whole afternoon. My honest gripe is the back of the wheel, where all the candy decoration just stops. It is a lovely toy for a kid who wants to spin and play rather than a display piece for a purist.

Best for: kids around 7-10 who want a wheel they can actually spin and play carnival with

The full review

What it is

The first thing that got me with this one was the cupcakes. Each gondola on the wheel is styled like a frosted cupcake, and when you set the whole thing spinning those little sweets swing around past oversized candy canes and balloons like the world's most sugary fairground. It is 602 pieces of unapologetic pink and pastel, and I mean that as a compliment. The boarding area uses stepping stones in pink and blue, there are candy swirl pieces tucked into the gaps between the cars, and the wheel itself turns with a smoothness that a lot of kid-focused sets never quite manage. Underneath the sweetness there is a small amount of Technic doing the real work, kept mostly out of sight, which is exactly where you want it.

The catch

I will be straight with you about where it wobbles. The back of the wheel is where the budget clearly ran out. All that lovely candy decoration lives on the front face, and if you turn the model around the rear is fairly plain, so this really wants to sit against a wall rather than float in the middle of a play table. Value is honest but not a steal either, working out to roughly ten cents a piece at the 59.99 price, which is standard Friends territory rather than a bargain. And if you follow the wider 2026 Friends wave, the minidoll casting is genuinely uneven, with Liann turning up again and again while other characters barely get a look in, so do not buy this expecting a fresh face you cannot get elsewhere.

Who it's for

Here is who I would hand this to without hesitation. A child around seven to ten who loves carnival play, sweets, and anything that spins will adore it, because the ring toss actually works, the prizes are charming (a donut, a narwhal, a bee), and the whole thing rewards hands-on spinning rather than careful posing. If you are an adult collector chasing display-grade builds or clever engineering, this is not your set, and that is fine. It knows exactly what it is: a bright, turning, play-first fairground piece that earns its place in a kid's bedroom.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building it is a relaxed, pleasant sit of around one to two hours, and the pacing is kind. You construct the base and boarding area first, which is where a lot of the character lives, then move on to the wheel structure and finally clip the cupcake gondolas into place. The turning mechanism comes together more simply than you would guess from watching it spin, and there is a nice little payoff moment when the whole wheel first rotates cleanly on its axis. It never gets fiddly enough to frustrate a confident young builder, which is the whole point at this age range.

On the parts front, the joy here is in the printed and specialty candy elements rather than rare technical bits. The cupcake styling leans on frosting-shaped pieces and candy swirl elements used to fill the spaces between the gondolas, and the set carries the newer donut plushie that looks charmingly half-eaten. You also get the themed carnival accessories, cotton candy, drinks, and the ring toss prizes, which are the kind of small printed and molded pieces that migrate straight into a kid's wider play collection. It is not a parts-pack for MOC builders chasing recolors, but for sweet-themed and fairground pieces it is a generous little haul.

Fun facts

01The ring toss game genuinely works, and its prizes include a donut, a narwhal and a bee.
02This is the only set in the wave to include all three carnival plushies, among them a new donut plushie designed to look partially eaten.
03The Technic that drives the wheel is deliberately hidden under the candy shell, so the mechanism stays out of sight while the wheel turns.
04The three minidolls are Liann, Nova and Zac, with Zac wearing a koala t-shirt and overalls and Nova sporting a Classic Space logo on the back of her hoodie.