Reliable Cookie-to-Butter Ratio for Crumb Crusts I'm trying to find a general and reliable Cookie-to-Butter ratio (or weights) that I can use when I make crumb crusts for no-bake pies.

My old baking textbook, On Baking: A Textbook of Baking &amp; Pastry Fundamentals (Third Edition) by Labensky, Martel &amp; van Damme gives the ratios for a basic crumb crust as follows:  4 parts cookie crumbs to 2 parts sugar to 1 part melted butter.  So, for a single 9" deep dish graham cracker pie crust, they recommend going with 8 oz. graham cracker crumbs + 4 ounces sugar + 2 oz. butter (blah, blah...food processor...pressed into the pie plate and baked at 350° F for 10-12 minutes).

OK, I have a few problems with those amounts:  (1) 8 oz. of crumbs is WAY too much for a single pie crust (5-6 oz. is plenty), (2) using half as much sugar as crumbs is WAY too much sugar for my taste (I go with more like a quarter), &amp; (3) I can never seem to get a crust to hold together with that amount of butter.  Lately I've been going with 6 oz. cookie crumbs + 2 oz. sugar + 2.5 oz. melted butter - I'm pretty sure I can do better than that.

Ignoring my first two complaints - I can get the cookie and sugar amounts right w/o a problem - does anyone have a reliable Cookie-to-Butter ratio that works well for cookie crumb crusts in general?  I don't want links to recipes (there are recipes out there with butter ranging from around 15% to nearly 60% of the cookie crumb weight), I want to hear from people who have had repeated success with specific crumb crust formularies (in weights, not volumes).

In a perfect world, I would love to hear of a trustworthy Cookie-to-Butter ratio that applies equally well to most cookie types (I almost never use graham crackers - I'm more of a Nilla Wafer and Animal Cracker kinda guy who dreams of one day branching out into ginger snap territory).
I don't know that this is a perfect ratio, but I will say it's my favorite crumb crust. It's from America's Test Kitchen's Lemon Cheesecake.


5 ounces Nabisco Barnum's Animal Crackers or Social Tea Biscuits
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and kept warm 


So, 5 oz crumbs, 1.5 oz sugar, 2 oz butter.