Move Over Easy Bake Oven: Bakery Comes to Farmville

FarmVille, one of the many games available on Facebook from maker Zynga, nows offers the ability to use those bushels we all have been collecting from our farms and friends. Yes, the bushels started as a way for us to use them to gain mastery for our crops. Lasting for 2 hours, they add a +1 mastery to crops you are harvesting. This allows for you to level up faster and earn more towards fully mastering a crop.

Well, it appears there is much more to this bushel business than simply assisting in your crop mastery. A bakery, available through your gift box, allows you to create a bakery on your farm. Start out making Pumpkin bread (at least that's what it gave me) and work your way up levels. With each star you earn through cooking items using bushels, you receive another stove to make more goods at one time. As per usual with things in FarmVille, each good that can be cooked requires a certain level. No, this is not your FarmVille level, but a level inside the bakery itself.

Each good lists the number of bushels for each item needed to bake the good, as well as the time required for it to complete. You will definitely need several market stalls, if you don't already have them, to collect bushels. Market stalls are available through the market inside the game for either 50,000 coins or 20 FarmVille cash. Glad there is a choice for purchasing market stalls.

So just what good are goods?

Two things happen once you have created and collected goods from an oven. You are provided one for your use and several for friends to purchase. The one you get can be used to provide you with some fuel for those pieces of equipment you most likely having sitting around your farm. The ones available for your friends to purchase can be bought with coins. This basically sets into play the chance to get fuel for coins. The goods appear to be selling for 1000 coins each. Don't think you are going to get a whole tank for that much, but every little bit helps and you don't have to shell out your money for fuel.

It also seems that some items are available from friends through the Facebook. When you complete a good, you can share a sample with your friends by posting it to the wall. This is what happened with the first pumpkin bread that I had done, allowed friends to collect some. If this is like anything else Zynga, be on the lookout for baked goods from your friends in FarmVille.

You never know when something might "crop" up. So get planting, harvesting, and creating goods.