Thank you all for the responses!
Squirmy, unfortunately, that isn't an option at this point. Because of the college's messed up policy, I wasn't able to find out until last Thursday that it was the only thing they had in the chem storage room. I had to go in with the lab manager and look around. Organic chem lab is simply horrible here since we don't have open labs, so we're usually allowed 3.5 hours at the most (or rather 2 hrs since the professor gives quizzes & lectures on the lab before we actually start).
Lutesium, it doesn't look like the reaction in the image will produce what I need. There's suppose to be a CH2 bridging a benzyl and the tertiary carbon. heh, we can probably thank the multiple nomenclature systems for that. When I looked up the compound diethyl benzylmalonate, I was getting structures that were either missing the secondary carbon at that position or had a different group there. I had a hell of a time trying to find the correct structures to go with the names in order to look up data. Anyway, the lab is taken from Kenneth L. Williamson's "Organic Experiments" 9th edition, Chpt 42, 2. Benzylbarbituric Acid. That's what I have to follow, otherwise my professor will go ape if I start changing reagents and deviating too much from the procedure.
Vogel? Haha! We're lucky we have a couple of Merck Indices, a few CRCs, and some C/H-NMR and IR spec reference books from the 60's and 70's. Our college library has even less! I could have the library order it in for me, but I wouldn't get it in time, lol.
ChloroAcetic Acid + NaCN ===> + NaOH ===> +H2SO4 + EtOH ===> Diethyl Malonate
I would still need to add a benzylmethyl group, and besides, it would take too much time. I only have 3 hours to complete the lab with 2 of them being used up for refluxing during the reaction process(any suggestions to speed it up?), ~15-20 minutes on the rotary evaporator, and 30 minutes for recrystallization. If we go over that allotted time on our special lab, we lose points ( 5 for every ten minutes or something like that).
heh, a silly suggestion, but maybe if I ran the diethyl benzylmalonate solution through some anhydrous calcium chloride before adding it. It would take care of any water, but it probably wouldn't help, lol.