Tourte of franchipanne

Take the fairest flowre you can get, and allay it with whites of eggs. Presently take the twelfth part of your paste, and spread it untill you may see through it. Butter your plate or tourte pan, spread this first sheet, dress it up, butter it at the top, and do the same to the number of six. Then put what cream you will, and make the top as the bottom to the number of six sheets. Bake your tourte leasurely, After it is baked, besprinkle it with water of flowers, sugar it well and serve.
You must have a care to work up your paste as soon as it is made, because it drieth up sooner than you are aware, and when it is dry, it is unusefull, because your sheets must be as thin as cobwebs, therefore you must choose a moist place.* * * * *The French Cook, François Pierre La Varenne, Englished in 1653, p. 200.

Basically this is describing using phyllo dough, and the adjuration to work it in a moist place is imperative. Thaw your dough in the fridge and place your 12 sheets of dough between waxed paper with a moist towel laid over the top. Remove one sheet at a time and recover the rest immediately. Lay your dough in a pan and brush with melted butter, one layer at a time.
Prepare a mixture of 5 oz of pounded almonds, 4 oz of sugar and 2 eggs. Pour into your pan and cover with 6 more layers of dough brushed with melted butter. You could also use beurre cream or a cream cheese mixture with sugar and eggs.
Bake at 425°F for 5 minutes; then reduce temperature to 400°F and bake for 10-20 minutes more until golden brown and a broom straw inserted in the center comes out clean.
Removed from oven and sprinkle with orange or rose flower water and a sprinkle of sugar. Cool, slice and serve.

Tourte de beurre

Butter Tourte.

Melt a peece of butter; after it is melted, put some sugar in it, and some stamped almonds, with a little cream or milk, allayed with flower sod. Then make a sheet of fine or puft paste. Put your implements into it, make a brim about it, bake it, and serve it sugred, and with sweet water, if you have any.

The French Cook, François Pierre La Varenne, Englished in 1653, p. 198.* * * * *Sugar High Friday is the brainchild of Jennifer, the Domestic Goddess, and is hosted this month as The Test of Time - Desserts over a century old by In My Box.

Similar sweets to this 1653 tourte de beurre are known today as crème brulée or sugar cream pie. Whether baking in a puff paste shell on a sheet of paper on the sole [floor] of the oven or in a flaky pastry crust in a pie pan, this rich pastry cream flavored with almonds has been delighting palates for centuries.

Steep your crushed almonds in warm milk. Mix melted butter with an equal amount of sugar and flour then stir in heated milk and almonds, continuing to heat and stir constantly until mixture bubbles for one minute. Pour onto a plate and cool.

Roll puff paste and cut into desired shape. Build up the edges with waste strips of puff paste and place on baking paper. Chill until pastry cream is cold. Fill cold paste shell with cold pastry cream. Bake in a hot oven [400°F] until crust is golden and flaky. Sprinkle baked tourte with sugar and pass a red hot fire shovel [salamander or torch] over the top of the tourte to melt the sugar. Cut into portions and serve with a drizzle of orange flower or rose water--an oldie but goodie!

Compotes of Peaches

When the Peaches are full ripe, they can only be roasted; because this sort of Fruit is too soft. Therefore they must be neatly par'd and laid in Quarters, upon a Silver-dish, or Plate, with Sugar, and, if you think fit, with candy'd Lemmon-peel chopt small: Then, being bak'd in an Oven, let them be dress'd, if they are to be serv'd p with any Thing else, and let the red-hot Fire-shovel be pass'd over them, to give them a fine Colour, after they have been strew'd with Sugar.

This Compote, and others of the like nature, may be put into a Tourte, or Pan-pie, and to that end, a Border of Paste, and even the whole Furniture that is usually provided for other Pan-pies, must be laid in the Dish, in which the Peaches are to be roasted, and the Fruit must be set in order therein. In the mean while, another Piece of Paste for Crackling Crust, being roll'd out, may be cut into slips, and separately bak'd in an Oven; in order to be ic'd over with the White of an Egg, and Powder-sugar, well temper'd together. This ic'd Crust must aso be dried in the Oven, till it become very white, and laid upon the Pie, a little before it is serv'd up to Table.
* * * * *
The court & country cook, faithfully translated out of French into English by J. K. A. J. Churchill, London, 1702, p. 71 New Instructions for Confectioners.

Tourte of foie gras

Make an undercrust of fine paste & put it in a tart plate, put grated bacon on the bottom, season it with salt and pepper & a little sweet herbs, arrange the livers next & finish with tips of mushrooms, morels, will foams & truffles; season like the lower part, & cover the whole with very thin veal slices & bacon slices, cover the tourte with a second crust, gild it with eggs & put it to bake in the oven; once cooked, take it out and remove the top section of crust [carefully], remove the sections of veal & the slices of bacon [save these for hash or a farce], degrease it & add a little ham essence, replace the upper crust, reheat it & serve.

La nouvelle maison rustique, ou, Économie generale de tous les biens de campagne: la manière de les entretenir & de les multiplier : donée ci-devant au public / par le Sieur Louis Liger. Paris : Saugrain, 1755, Tome II, IV. Part. LIV. IV. Chap. I. La Cuisine. B., p. 849.

Tourte de foies gras
Dressez une abaisse de pâte fine & la mettez dans une tourtiere, mettez dessus du lard rapé, l’assaisonnez de sel, de poivre & un peu de fines herbes, rangez les foies dessus & garnissez de crêtes, de champignons, morilles, mousserons & truffes assasisonnés comme le dessous, & couvrez le tout de tranches de veau bien minces & bardes de lard, couvrez la tourte de l’autre abaisse, dorez-la d’œufs & la mettez cuire au four; étant cuite, tirez-la & la découvrez, ôtez-en les tranches de veau & les bardes de lard, dégraissez-la & y mettez un peu d’essence de jambon, recouvrez-la & la servez chaudement.