The Best Smoked Desserts: French Macarons on a Traeger Grill!

Don’t want to turn on your oven in the summer? You can now make macarons on a Traeger grill, or any smoker, taking that kitchen beyond your countertops and cupboards! These French macarons are one of the best smoked desserts that you’ll ever make.

Pellet Grill Desserts

We set out to be the first to make the world’s most finicky cookie in something that wasn’t a precise metal box inside your kitchen! And spoiler alert! We succeeded 🙂 

Smoked desserts are perfect for when you want a delicious baked treat but don’t want your oven to heat up your kitchen. I love to do all the cooking outside and keep the cool air in during the summer. That AZ heat is no joke!

Traeger Macarons Dos and Donts

Let’s talk about all the things Not To Do when making French Macarons in a smoker.

• First, DO NOT preheat the pan. We thought this tactic might be better suited to cooking on a Traeger, knowing that the heat of any smoker can fluctuate 20+ degrees.
• Second: DO NOT use the No-Rest method (for whatever reason). I repeat, most of our failed hilarious videos came from the demise of several pans of macarons when figuring out what would work.
• Third: DO NOT worry about what kind of pan you are using.  Any pan works. Trust us, we tried aluminum, steel, AirBake, any and all. The smoker, turns out is a machine that does not get sidetracked or caught up with what you are baking on.
• Fourth:  Bake as directed, meaning, even though smokers are known to cook similar to a convection-style oven, there’s no need to turn down the temp. In fact, our best batch to date was probably a few degrees above our regular oven cooking temp.

How to Make French Macarons on the Traeger

• First: Whip, beat and stir your macaron batter as usual.
• Second: Rest your macs for a full 30 minutes, or until you can run your finger smoothly over the top.
• Third: Get that smoker hot. Like a well pre-heated oven, the initial heat needs to be at least 285 degrees F, if not a tad hotter.  If your Traeger is like mine, you have an option of setting it at 275 or 295. I choose 295 knowing we would lose a few degrees when we opened the hatch.
• Fourth: Bake time is as usual. 20 minutes. Don’t PEEK! I know, there is no cute window to peek in on our sleeping beauties, but like I said, DON’T peek.

Smoked Desserts: French Macarons

Our number one question is, “Do they taste smokey?” and our answer is THEY DO! It is subtle and paired with the right filling it tastes like heaven in a cookie. I would go far enough to say that it will transfer you to that moment of singing kumbaya around a campfire.

Surprisingly, the pellet flavor didn’t have much of an impact. We tried every type of pellet flavor from cherry to blended. In the end, we wouldn’t choose between them; they were all delicious!

We have a whole post with flavor combos perfect for Traeger-smoked macs! 

So now go get our tried and true recipe, and our favorite buttercream recipe. Now let’s get baking!

Now a little nod of appreciation: If it wasn’t for the masterminds at Orson Gygi, and the wonderful team at Traeger, none of this would have even turned out. We love the chance to work with Gygi. They feel like family and I am beyond lucky to be able to work with them.  We hope you will try to bake something sweet on your Traeger.  Make sure to tag us if you do!