I’ve experienced this from the inside. I’m the pastry chef at Little Egg, where my own cruller went modestly viral and was listicled endlessly when the restaurant opened three years ago. For months it was the only baked good anyone seemed to order. The experience was both thrilling and bewildering: so many of the pastries I make are just as delicious, but the cruller (a cousin of the doughnut, made with choux pastry) continues to have people by the throat. It photographs well. It arrives lacquered with oozing ribbons of caramel or plum drizzle. And, of course, it’s deep-fried.