When visiting my in-laws in Finland, a coffee table that would pass for a three-course meal would appear sporting grand gâteau-style jobs, biscuits and sweet bread.
The word pudding has hefty connotations not properly understood by those who call the sweet course dessert, but ‘pudding’ can mean some confection as light as a sorbet, not just suet and sponge jobs for a winter’s day. And cake, though quite possibly rounding off the meal, usually signifies something that needs a cup of tea or coffee, at most a glass of Madeira, by way of accompaniment.