In 1933 Vernon Rudolph bought a doughnut recipe from a French chef and set out to make a sweet dream come true. He moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with just some old equipment and $200. He used every penny he had to buy a little store.

And though he died in 1973, Vernon's Krispy Kreme doughnuts now are devoured all over the world.

Today, Krispy Kreme shops produce more than 7.5 million doughnuts a day, enough in one week to stretch from L.A. to New York. In just 22 seconds, Krispy Kreme can make enough doughnuts that, if stacked on top of one another, they would be as tall as the Empire State Building!

To this day, there are just four people who really know the secret recipe that makes those doughnuts so good. The recipe, which is locked up in a vault, is blended into a mystery mix and shipped off to Krispy Kreme stores everywhere.

"Has anybody ever eaten just one?" Oprah asks. "I had my first one [a couple years ago] and I ended up eating four. It's dangerous!"