refactored the test to be compatible with future versions of gradle where invoking private methods on tasks is not supported
extracted configuration logic to inner class; versions of gradle > 1.7 take issue with attempting to invoke a private method on an extension
converted private method to static; gradle version > 1.7 take issue with invoking private instance methods on extensions from within closures
converted closure to for:each loop; version of gradle > 1.7 disallow invoking private methods on tasks