Check out this home-made Angry Birds level made out of gingerbread. The birds and the pigs are made out of marzipan. Projects like these really showcase how much passion people have for Rovio’s Angry Birds brand.

Through a partnership with Wonderful Pistachios, Rovio has built a level in the Angry Birds game called “The Hunt For The Golden Pistachio.” The game was launched yesterday and can be played on GetCrackin.com. The game requires the Chrome browser. The game-play is just like Angry Birds, but the birds are used for cracking open pistachios rather than taking out the pigs. Users will be able to win a total of $300,000 in prizes that range from free pistachios, Angry Birds toys, or $25,000 in cash. The prizes will be offered through December 31. [Mashable]

To further capitalize on the Angry Birds franchise, Rovio Mobile has released a cookbook with egg recipes. The cookbook is called Angry Birds: Bad Piggies’ Egg Recipes. The book contains egg recipes for breakfast plates, sandwiches, desserts, and sushi. If you want to see some photos from the book, check out pages 1-7 of this blog post. The cookbook was released by Nokia House. [Mashable]

Social gaming company Zynga had made buy-out offers to mobile gaming companies PopCap and Rovio. Both companies turned down their respective buy-out offers. PopCap, developer of Plants vs. Zombies and Peggle, turned down $1 billion from Zynga. Rovio, developed of the Angry Birds franchise, turned down a $2.25 billion offer from Zynga. Zynga’s corporate culture was cited as one of the major reasons why the two companies turned down the offer. It is also believed that Zynga did not want to pay the amount that Rovio wanted. PopCap Games ended up being acquired by Electronic Arts. It is believed that PopCap took EA’s offer because their earn-out terms were simpler to meet. Zynga is expected to go public very soon. [BusinessInsider]

Rovio’s Angry Birds has reached a major milestone. The company has hit 500 million downloads in under 2 years since the game launched. Angry Birds is a mobile game where players uses a slingshot to throw birds at pigs that stole their eggs. Angry Birds has stayed at the top of the charts since they launched for the Apple iPhone on December 11, 2009.

At the Web 2.0 conference, Rovio North American General Manager Andrew Stalbow has revealed some impressive numbers about the Angry Birds game. Angry Birds has hit 400 million downloads. The game also sees about 130 million monthly users, 30 million daily active users, and 300 million minutes of game-play per day.

Angry Birds Rio has been downloaded 10 million times in 10 days. This further proves how successful of a company Rovio is and how addictive Angry Birds is. This download count includes iOS and Android versions, free and paid. Angry Birds Rio will be updated four times this year and has a theme from the animated movie Rio. The original Angry Birds game has been downloaded over 100 million times since launching in 2009. [IntoMobile]

Talouselämä is a business magazine in Finland that published information about Angry Birds game development company Rovio. Rovio is planning to go public in New York according to the article. Rovio Chairman Kaj Hed said that the company’s $42 million in funding was a direction that step. Hed is the father of Rovio CEO Mikael Hed.