Sweet and Smoky Bacon Waffles with Maple Whip Cream

Today is national waffle day! I'm not sure who comes up with this stuff, but who's going to argue? Almost whenever we do breakfast for dinner, I make bacon to go with pancakes or waffles or whatever it may be. And I make a brown sugar chili powder rub to go on the bacon to make it sticky and sweet and smoky. Then one night I thought, "Why not put the bacon IN the waffle?" So I did. And it was magic.

Ingredients:
1 1/12 c flour
2 T sugar
1/2 T + 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 3/4 c milk
3 T butter, melted
2 egg whites (separated)
2 egg yolks
5-6 strips of bacon
1/4 c brown sugar
2 T chili powder

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Mix together the brown sugar and chili powder. If it looks like not enough chili powder, add more. If it looks like too much, add more brown sugar. This is so easy to change to your tastes. Line the bacon on a baking sheet and rub the brown sugar mixture on it. Bake in the oven for about 12 minutes. If it doesn't look quite done, let it go for another minute or two. While that is baking, mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Once it's well combined, whip the 2 egg whites until they form soft peaks. Add the milk, butter and egg yolks to the flour mixture. Mix well and then gently fold in the egg whites. When the bacon is done, let it cool slightly and then cut into bite size pieces. Heat up your waffle iron. Add the bacon pieces to the batter and gently and quickly mix it all together. Spray the waffle iron with cooking spray and start cooking your waffles! This makes somewhere between 6-8 waffles. For the maple whip cream, I just started whipping heavy cream. Once it got a little thicker, I just started drizzling in some maple syrup and kept whipping. I stopped after about 2 T and tasted it. It wasn't quite where I wanted so I added a little more syrup until it was the right amount of sweet. I beat the cream until stiff peaks formed. (Since we live on a newly wed/college student budget we use the sweet, syrupy syrup like Aunt Jemima's or Mrs. Butterworth's, no real maple syrup here!)