Step 1
Place butter in a pot over medium heat; cook and stir until mostly melted 1 to 2 minutes. Add flax meal and cinnamon; cook and stir until butter becomes a deep toasty brown about 3 to 5 minutes. Pour browned butter into a large heat-resistent bowl.
Step 2
Mix half-and-half milk white sugar brown sugar and vanilla extract together in a pot over medium-high heat. As the mixture approaches a boil scoop out 1/4 cup and whisk it with egg yolks in a bowl. Repeat this 3 or 4 times until egg mixture is almost doubled in volume. Stir egg mixture into milk mixture; simmer until custard begins to thicken about 2 minutes.
Step 3
Pour custard through a strainer into the bowl with browned butter; stir until butter is incorporated. Cover bowl and refrigerate until completely cooled 6 hours to overnight.
Step 4
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and place a wire rack on top.
Step 5
Mix brown sugar and 1 tablespoon maple syrup together in a small bowl.
Step 6
Place bacon on the wire rack on the baking sheet.
Step 7
Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes. Flip bacon and cook until about 2/3 cooked 5 to 10 minutes more. Flip bacon again and baste the tops with brown sugar-syrup mixture; bake for 5 minutes. Flip bacon and baste the other side; bake for 5 minutes. Continue this process until bacon is crisp and coating has candied and all the brown sugar-syrup mixture is used 5 to 10 minutes more.
Step 8
Turn off oven and sprinkle sea salt over both sides of bacon; let sit for a few minutes in the oven. Chop bacon into bite-size pieces.
Step 9
Preheat oven to 200 degrees F (95 degrees C). Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. Drizzle 1 1/2 teaspoons maple syrup over the parchment paper keeping the drops dime-size or smaller.
Step 9
Bake in the preheated oven until drops are bubbling and height of each drop is less than half of it was in the beginning about 1 hour. Cool on baking sheet until stiff yet slightly sticky.